poetry & flash fiction that is very very

HAPPY NATIONAL NATIONAL POETRY DAY!

V. Press is very very delighted to share that a poem from Sarah Doyle's chapbook Something so wild and new in this feeling has been chosen for this year's National Poetry Day resources. You can enjoy her poem 'Birds sang divinely to-day' here.

The website has lots of other poetry resources that can be used for this year's National Poetry Day celebration, themed 'The Environment'.

Another sample poem and more information about Something so wild and new in this feeling can be found here.

NEW TITLES' NEW PRINT RUNS

The Beautiful Open Sky

Hannah Linden's The Beautiful Open Sky has been selling so well that we've had to order a second print run in the week of its publication!

“The Beautiful Open Sky opens with an extraordinary run of poems, heartbreaking and precise, about the damage done by a narcissistic mother. As it progresses, the poems accumulate symbols, becoming increasingly phantasmagorical, before the patterns of a new life emerge as if through broken cloud.  It works as a story, direct and emotional, but is also a meditation on how we remember – on the limits of reason and metaphor as ways of understanding the past. This is a fine model for a pamphlet: a focused set of beautiful poems, cunningly arranged, which draw power from each other. A wonderful debut.” 
Tom Sastry

“Truths are slippery and sometimes sinister in this stunning exploration of familial relationships by Hannah Linden. It can be hard to know who to trust, or who is parenting whom. But there is beauty here too, and a positivity that shines through despite the odds. Self-reflective and superb, Linden’s use of language is playful and imaginative. I can’t wait to see what she does next.”

Julia Webb

The Beautiful Open Sky is very past and very present. 

A sample poem, audio recording and ordering for The Beautiful Open Sky is available here. If you don't already have one, get a copy while you still can!

You'll need an umbrella for this 

Meanwhile, Victoria Richards' full collection, You'll need an umbrella for this was only published at the start of July and we've already had to get a new print run for this too!

“The title isn’t messing about: these poems soak the page with language that is visceral, immediate and sharp. An exciting debut full of vitality, pain and joy.” 
Luke Wright

“In this gorgeous debut, Victoria Richards asks ‘What are girls made of?’ And the poems answer: cans of Strongbow; ballpoint tattoos; dirty jokes; ghost bikes tied to lampposts; Ingrid Bergman’s eyeballs. All of the above and so much more is contained in this collection. A world of mothers, journalists, children and girlhoods are all drowned or on fire in You’ll need an umbrella for this. Richards tells us these stories with love, humour, lyricism and the sort of eye for detail which leaves an impression on the heart. I will read these poems for years, pass them onto friends: part secret, part gossip, part gift.” 
Lewis Buxton 

“Victoria Richards’s remarkable debut, You’ll need an umbrella for this, is more than a book of poems, it is a best friend. These poems will be there for you in the middle of the night when you are lovesick or broken hearted; they will glance you a knowing look when you need one most and make you laugh even when you think you’ve forgotten how. In these poems, without reserve, expectation or apology, Richards is offering us her heart. Accept it and she will make a fire out of beauty and pain, pour vodka on the flames and dance with you in the light.” 
Amelia Loulli

You’ll need an umbrella for this is very wild and very windswept.

A sample poem and ordering for You'll need an umbrella for this  is available here.

REVIEWS

"[...]Hannah Linden’s pamphlet is full of love, compassion and insight. Her use of language is colloquial yet rich and deep. This is a wonderful debut pamphlet from a poet with many more books inside her. Its first print run sold out within a week!"
Rachael Clyne, London Grip, full review here.

A sample poem, audio recording and ordering for The Beautiful Open Sky is available here.

INTRODUCING A NEW V. PRESS GUEST EDITOR 

V. Press is very very delighted to be working with Charlotte Gann on a new forthcoming title that she will be guest editing...

Charlotte Gann is an editor by trade – she worked as Editor of Health Which? magazine, for instance – and also works, within poetry, as Editor of The Understory Conversation (of which she’s Founder), and Co-Editor of Sphinx Review. She has an English degree from UCL and an MA in Creative Writing and Personal Development from the University of Sussex. She’s also a poet, with one pamphlet – The Long Woman (Pighog), shortlisted for the 2012 Michael Marks Award – and two full collections – Noir (2016) and The Girl Who Cried (2020), both published by HappenStance. Her main focus in recent times has been on developing and convening The Understory Conversation, a hub for creatives curious to explore the underside. She is guest editor of Georgia Gildea's forthcoming V. Press poetry pamphlet bed.

GEORGIA GILDEA is a writer from Oxford. She is a graduate of the Warwick Writing Programme (2016) and holds an MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published poems in Marble, Lunate and The Cardiff Review. Georgia is interested in writing that emerges from a place of voicelessness, and in the complex process of claiming a voice. Her forthcoming V. Press poetry title, bed, is her debut pamphlet.