Heading towards spring...reading, writing, reviews

REVIEW NEWS

Blue Dot Aubade

"Blue Dot Aubade has a strong sense of humanity and wonder at its core, exploring values of compassion and curiosity through astronomical phenomena. It doesn’t require the reader to have a knowledge of astrophysics or seek to confound with complex, condensed explanations. Through astrophysics, Miranda Lynn Barnes has created a new way of looking at human issues and how we fit in the wider universe."

Emma Lee, Sabotage Reviews, full review here.

More information, a sample poem and ordering for Blue Dot Aubade can be found here.

Making Tracks 

“Making Tracks by Katy Wareham Morris, out with V Press, is a creative and conceptual triumph, exploring the disparate effects of a changing place on a multifaceted set of identities, communities and cultures.”

R.M. Francis, ‘Best of 2020: Poetry’, Morning Star, full list & review here.

“That’s where the success of ‘Making Tracks’ lies. It combines social history with factual history, it’s a record of what the Longbridge plant meant to the families of employees and a collection of poems which makes for rewarding reading.”

Emma Lee, The Blue Nib, full review here.

More information, a sample poem and ordering for Making Tracks can be found here.

This Lexia & Other Languages

“[...]This Lexia & Other Languages explores the inability of a neurotypical world to incorporate those who don’t conform, how dyslexics are failed by schools and carry that stigma into adulthood. Helen Kay does this with warmth and wit, crafting poems that explain without judgment or self-pity, opening out their world to a general reader.” 

Emma Lee, Sabotage Reviews, full review here 

More information, a sample poem and ordering for This Lexia & Other Languages can be found here.

An Inheritance

“[…] although it is brief and almost deceptively simple, An Inheritance is also artful and profound. It’s easy to read – Simmons’ writing is unfussy, tender and engaging – but there’s a great deal going on under the surface. It’s a beautiful little book which has much to say about time and change and families, and about the treasures to be found in ordinary life.”

Becky Tipper, TSS Publishing, full review here.

For more information, a sample flash and to buy a copy of An Inheritance, please click here. 

Winter with Eva

"Sean’s flawed character adds an extra level of narrative tension to these poems, something I appreciated. There are many fine images and lucid lines, especially the innovative ‘Whiteout’ (‘Then you push me so I’m knee-deep in ice sugar, / tell me to open, / slip snow in my mouth, a white wafer’). I liked the quirky tenderness in ‘Earbud’ and ‘Creation’; the latter also contains rhythmical, visceral language for making art: ‘You scratch around for dirt and spit into your palm, / work to make the paste to paint a man’. The poem delves into Eva’s backstory, but its energy is in its imagery."

Sarah Law, The Poetry School, full review here.

For more information, a sample poem and to buy a copy of Winter with Eva, please click here.

FORTHCOMING & AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER

V. Press is very very delighted that the first three poetry titles for 2021 are now available to pre-order.

Sarah Doyle's poetry chapbook, Something so wild and new in this feeling Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journals Reimagined, is published on 2 March 2021.

“In these inventive and adventurous collage poems, Sarah Doyle presents Dorothy Wordsworth’s exuberant feeling for life and language in a fresh fabric of her own making. Sympathetic and insightful, tactful, and imaginative, Doyle’s compositions refract the energies of Dorothy’s writings through the subtle medium of her own sensibility, and the result is at once daring and illuminating.” Gregory Leadbetter

 

“In Something so wild and new in this feeling, Sarah Doyle has taken Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals and developed excerpts into poems, finding felicities of phrasing, musicality, and ideas. Doyle’s skills in pacing, use of the line, and the possibilities of form help us appreciate anew Wordsworth’s habits of thought and close attention to the natural world. With Wordsworth and Doyle, the reader hears the birds singing in the mist.” Carrie Etter

A sample poem, more information and pre-ordering for Something so wild and new in this feeling Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journals Reimagined can be found here.

Jenna Plewes' fifth full collection, A Woven Rope, is published on 18 March 2021. 

“Jenna Plewes has a remarkable gift for infusing every subject with an imagery and a sensuality which are detailed and exact, so that you are convinced of the truthfulness of the emotions expressed. Every poem here contributes to the whole, but for me the outstanding section is the third: nowhere else have I seen the carer’s role exemplified with such clarity. She seems to have unlimited empathy for the subjects of the sequence, and she never tips over into sentimentality. This book, Jenna Plewes’s fifth, is her strongest yet.” John Killick

“Grace and purpose distinguish this collection where poems trace the arc of parenting and explore the manifold challenges of being in the world.  This collection also observes the natural world, its beauties, and its terrors, and is unafraid to confront violence and cruelty.  The writing throughout is unforced, fine-drawn, lyrical, heart-felt.” Penelope Shuttle

A sample poem, more information and pre-ordering for A Woven Rope can be found here.

May We All Be Artefacts by V. Press Prize for Poetry Winner 2020, Chloe Hanks, is published on 14 April 2021.

“Chloe Hanks’ melodic writing style rocks the reader into a dream-like state, with hauntingly beautiful scenes of autumnal skies and ghostly ballets. May We All Be Artefacts is a landscape of glorious imagery, transporting the reader to magical realities before bringing the point home with heartbreaking poignancy. This is a collection for the poets, for the lovers and above all for the dreamers.” Scarlett Ward Bennet

“May We All Be Artefacts is an exciting and urgent new release, from a powerful and distinct voice. Hanks intermittently borrows from existing artwork, striking strong intertextual links with other artists, while also establishing her own perspectives. She borrows from magic, folklore and feminism to create fierce and sometimes disturbing narratives throughout. Neither trite nor forced, Hanks’ use of structure and imagery complement each other, further compounding the dark fairy-tale feel that is infused in these works. This is a debut pamphlet that shouts its arrival, to be consumed in one sitting – then read, and read again – May We All Be Artefacts showcases Hanks’ skillset and potential, marking her out as a compelling new poet.” Charley Barnes

A sample poem, more information and pre-ordering for May We All Be Artefacts can be found here.

FOR OUR READERS WHO ARE ALSO WRITERS

V. Press editor Sarah James/Leavesley was delighted to take part in Abegail Morley's Creativity in Lockdown interviews over of The Poetry Shed. The series with writers and artists features all sorts of insights into the lockdown's effects on creativity as well as inspiration, tips and prompts for fostering creativity in difficult times. The interview with Sarah can be found here.

V. Press is also overdue an open submissions window...so please do look out for more news on this front as the year progresses.