V. Press is delighted to head into Spring with two new poetry titles interwoven with nature and three special Spring/Easter pamphlet bundles.
NEW RELEASES
Jenna Plewes' fifth full collection,
A Woven Rope, was 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 ordering for
A Woven Rope can be found
here.
Sarah Doyle's poetry chapbook, Something so wild and new in this feeling Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journals Reimagined, was released 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
SPRING/EASTER BUNDLES *
V. Press is delighted to have three double-pamphlet bundle offers available from now until the end of April 2021.
In and out of this world bundle: Blue Dot Aubade and Hierarchy of Needs for £11.99 including postage and packing for U.K. delivery
Blue Dot Aubade
"I don’t think poems need to teach anything but nevertheless there's much to learn about the cosmos, the spirit, matter, and what matters here. The best part is that the lessons are delivered by a high-energy beam of surprising, hyper-attentive language.[..]" Simon Barraclough
"[...] At times playful, at times poignant, these intelligent poems illuminate our environment in the broadest sense: they give us a new view of our universe and our relationship to it. An engaging, original debut." V. Press Guest Editor Carrie Etter
More on Blue Dot Aubade and a sample poem can be found here.
Hierarchy of Needs
"This pamphlet is a reminder of the extraordinary paradoxes and dualities cultivated between the shaky coexistence of the natural world within the Anthropocene. [...]"
Katy Wareham Morris"We do not exist without nature, though more and more these days, we seem to be expected to. In this book, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is used as a narrative to consider the entwining of both nature’s and our own human needs. [...]" Jane Burn
More on Hierarchy of Needs and a sample poem can be found here.
Community bundle: Winter with Eva and Checkout for £11.99 including postage and packing for U.K. delivery
Winter with Eva
"This is a poignant but tough love story told against the backdrop of Brexit-era England. Eva is Romanian, a free spirit with a beautiful soul navigating the ignorance and hatred of her adopted country. [...] So what begins as a love story evolves to encompass a greater theme – these poems speak eloquently of the way we live now."
Tamar Yoseloff"Elaine Baker writes so beautifully about love: macrocosmic passion and domestic comfort are drawn with sharp, sensual tenderness. But Winter with Eva is also a timely sociopolitical exploration and a gripping page-turner of a pamphlet, one to read carefully yet compulsively in a single sitting." Rachel Piercey
More on Winter with Eva and a sample poem can be found here.
Checkout
"
Checkout is a sequence of character portraits and vignettes based on the ephemeral characters that cross a corner shop’s bell-chiming threshold. [...] This is a bold and brave collection from the distinctive voice of Kathy Gee."
Rhian Edwards"In a time where high street shops are declining or under threat, Checkout is a timely ode, set in Middle England with a ‘cadenced heart,/ alert to daily rhythms, oiled/ by traffic, chips and friends.’" Roy Mcfarlane
More on Checkout and a sample poem can be found here.
Survival bundle: art brut and Scare Stories for £11.99 including postage and packing for U.K. delivery
art brut
"The poems in David O’Hanlon’s first collection are ‘epiphanies of sun’ which shine a light on the poet’s experiences of psychiatric illness; to read them is to experience serial insights into a much overlooked and frequently taboo aspect of the human condition. [...] David O’Hanlon shows us that while the past can have a powerful hold over us, beauty, truth and poetry can emerge from the depths of anguish and despair. An astonishing debut."
Fergus McGonigal"If David O'Hanlon had written this sentence, you'd have shed a tear by now." Jenni Pascoe, JibbaJabba
More on art brut and a sample poem can be found here.
Scare Stories
"The poems in
Scare Stories offer us exactly that: a series of richly populated narratives that show the contemporary moment as a grotesque and fearful nightmare. This is a world of war and refugees, high politics and helicopters, sex and suffering as entertainment. Somewhere at the root of things is money. It’s all delivered in sharp quatrains whose flamboyant rhyming makes it more brutal, not less. [..]"
Tony Williams"David Clarke conjures up post-apocalyptic visions that are uncomfortably close to our present. All of humanity is played out here, from gamers to generals, the whole bitingly observed. Scare Stories is a frightening mirror, but it’s also compelling and hypnotic, I dare you to look away." Claire Trévien
More on Scare Stories and a sample poem can be found here.
* Offers intended for U.K. delivery only and valid until the end of 30 April 2021 only.
SUBMISSIONS
V. Press editor Sarah Leavesley has been bowled over by the quality and range of the flash fiction submissions received during the February/March 2021 submissions window.
A big thank you to everyone who shared the call-out and to all those who have responded.
She is currently enjoying reading your submissions, while anticipating some very very difficult decisions ahead!
NEW REVIEWS
"Dilating and contracting like a beating heart, Wareham Morris’s dizzying perspectives are in themselves a commentary on the developers’ promotional blurb about “putting the heart back into/Longbridge”."
Stella Backhouse,
Here Comes Everyone, full review
hereFor more information, a sample poem and to order
Making Tracks by Katy Wareham Morris, please click
here.
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