Martin Figura and Will Stone
11.00 am Sunday 4 May The Maltings, Wells-next-the-Sea, £6
Jo Kjaer, winner of the first Norwich CafeWriters Commission, and runners-up Rod Kerr and Gillian Daly, will also be featured.
At the end of National Poetry Month, Dean Rader gives his views on Janet McAdams' Earthworks series:
“SINCE I BEGAN NATIONAL Poetry Month with a post on poetry and race, it seemed fitting to end with that topic as well. This time, though, the subject is a series of books, rather than a single collection. Salt Publishing, a great press whose main office is located in the U.K., recently launched a poetry series devoted to contemporary American Indian poetry. Edited by poet and scholar Janet McAdams and featuring books by LeAnne Howe, A. A. Hedge Coke, Heid Erdrich, Diane Glancy, Deborah Miranda, Gordon Henry, and Carter Revard, the Earthworks Series has emerged as the most important poetry series in the United States this century--maybe the most significant since the Pitt Poetry Series began three decades ago.”
Ian McMillan presents a cabaret of language, poetry and performance, in which poet Simon Barraclough reads from and talks about his new collection.
Writer Iain Sinclair celebrates the life and work of the poet John Riley, who was associated with the British poetry revival of the 1960s and 70s, and who was murdered 30 years ago at the age of 41.
And performance artist and singer-songwriter Baby Dee, possibly best known for her work with Antony and the Johnsons, sings songs from her new album.
Salt is inviting members of the ‘Poets on Fire’ forum to recommend British poets with a debut collection for publication by Salt in the Spring of 2009. There are no fees and no age limit.
To be successfully recommended, the author’s first collection must be between 55 and 65 A4 manuscript pages in length, typed in 12 point Times. Any recommended candidate must accept the terms and conditions outlined here:
Chris Hamilton-Emery will be the final judge of the competition.
Members of the forum wishing to make a recommendation must make a post in support of their candidate(s) succinctly but pertinently answering two simple questions:
What do you like about the work?
Why should it be published?
Forum members may comment in support of all suggestions made. From the online debate a shortlist of four authors will be made by popular agreement. Candidates may not recommend themselves. All recommendations MUST be by members of the forum (new members are welcome). The four shortlisted authors will be asked to submit their manuscripts to Salt for a final decision on the winner.
Recommendations must be made before the 30th June 2008.
The shortlist will be made by the 31st July 2008.
Manuscripts must be emailed before the 31st August 2008.
The winner will be announced on the Thursday October 9th 2008, National Poetry Day.
Thursday 15 May
Central Library
Committee Room, 2nd Floor
1-2pm
Free
Mike Barlow won first prize in the Amnesty International Competition 2002 and first prize in the Ledbury Competition 2005. His first collection, Living on the Difference, was short-listed for the Jerwood Aldeburgh Prize. He has read at the Troubadour, London, Lancaster Literature Festival and Aldeburgh Festival. Mike was the 2006 winner of the National Poetry Competition. His second collection, Another Place has recently been published by Salt.
Jane Routh Jane is a poet and photographer who manages woodlands and a flock of geese in the Forest of Bowland, North Lancashire, where she’s lived for the last thirty years. Her first collection Circumnavigation won the Poetry Business Competition and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for best first collection. Her second book, Teach Yourself Mapmaking (Smith/Doorstop) is a Poetry Book Society recommendation.
Salt has announced the expansion of its free online magazines with the launch of a new literary review, Horizon, set to appear in September. Since moving its eponymous Salt Magazine from print to the Web in 2007 the literary publisher has seen visits to its popular Web site more than double. Novelist, poet and critic Jane Holland will run Horizon for the next three years, editing two issues a year.
"The critical review is the lifeblood of the literary magazine," says Holland "As well as the best contemporary poetry, I want to develop a significant new space for debate around British poetry and its future with an emphasis on excellence, reading and judgement."
Holland will join a recent surge of high profile women literary editors in the UK: Anne Berkeley at Seam, Patricia Oxley at Acumen, Fiona Sampson at Poetry Review, Zoë Skoulding at Poetry Wales and Merryn Williams at Interpreter's House.
Magazine owners Salt intend to develop further magazines over the next two years. "Jane was the obvious choice for us, an experienced editor with a keen mind and active in robust debate; she has always shown considerable courage in her work," says Chris Hamilton-Emery. "Her appointment seems a natural move for us as we expand our stable of magazines and continue to develop our online presence. We hope and intend that this new literary review will provide serious critical attention for British poetry at a time when the art is reengaging with its public and diversifying in very exciting ways."
For more information on the development of magazine, straight from the editor’s desk, read the Horizon Review blog — Hot Metal
Salt Publishing
