REVIEWS
Friday 15 December 2023
Seasonal greetings and some review news
Friday 24 November 2023
Launching Brother
V. Press is very very delighted to share the publication of Brother, a chapbook/pamphlet of poems by Sheila Lockhart.
“Sheila Lockhart has created something special with this pamphlet. Brother is a poignant study of remembrance but one that manages to be almost joyful in its close observation of this lost life and the still-living world that goes on without it. It is special writing – clear, brightly configured, riven by pain, and perfectly formed.”
Niall Campbell
“These calm and clear-eyed poems are remarkable in their refusal to be afraid. Holding darkness and light in delicate balance, they move from suffering and loss into what comes afterwards and later, finding consolation in the dogged aliveness of the natural world and, no less importantly, in the patterns and shapes of language itself. Sheila Lockhart has written a bold and beautiful book.”
Katharine Towers
The poems in Brother are a very heart-felt and very unflinching consideration of grief and healing after suicide.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-9-8
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50
Monday 13 November 2023
Exciting news!
V. Press is very very delighted to share an exciting prize announcement as well as a whole batch of wonderful reviews, recent/forthcoming titles and events news.
The Human Portion by Nicola Warwick has been shortlisted in the poetry category of the coveted East Anglian Book Awards 2023, which celebrate the very best of publishing, writing, and reading in the region.
V. Press is so pleased to see this beautiful pamphlet recognised and sends big congratulations to Nicola that can probably be heard all the way from Worcestershire to East Anglia!
The full shortlists for all categories of the award can be found here and the category winners will be announced in the Eastern Daily Press in January.
The winning book from each category will be considered by a final judging panel of representatives from Jarrolds, Eastern Daily Press, National Centre for Writing and University of East Anglia. One of these six finalists will then go on to win the overall Book of the Year Award announced later that year.
Meanwhile, you can find details below of a recent review of The Human Portion and a forthcoming online V. Press showcase that Nicola will be reading at.
REVIEW NEWS
"Davies’ first collection, Bolt Down This Earth, also published by V. Press in 2017, was an exciting debut which I believe was the first book I reviewed for Litter online. The follow-up is a mature collection, reflecting some of the same preoccupations but with the distance of time and experience to bring both focus and depth to what is essentially a very personal outlook on the modern world."Sarah Doyle's latest V. Press pamphlet, (m)othersongs, is a gorgeous, courageous publication. At the centre is a woman's experience of reaching middle age, having been unable to bear a child. Doyle's poems are a "complex harvest". Her willingness to be vulnerable, and her arresting language, creativity, and attention to craft make this collection shine."
"In The Beautiful Open Sky, also published by V. Press, Hannah Linden shows what it is for a child to be emotionally abandoned by her mother. As the work unfolds, Linden reveals the later struggles of that grown child, a single mum making a life with her family in social housing. Offsetting the serious subject matter is the poet's quirky humour. A haunting and tender study of resilience."
"Her poems are moments of unsettling tension between the symmetry we see of ourselves in nature, and our oblivious disconnect. Warwick’s subtle glimpses of the individuals in her poems are unpredictably moving. Warwick shows us trying to bring the universe closer. Going to sleep, we still hope the birds outside call us to join our portion to the whole, as: ‘I watch them from the window for their exodus, / Count them out, count them all back in’."
Bobby Parker
“Like a Dylan Thomas of the age of mental illness, Gram Joel Davies leaps and flies through the world with dark exuberance. These are speakable poems, full of love for unlovable places and impossible people. In touch with but not tied to rap's rhymes and rhythms, this collection, for me, shifts the modern world into the painful focus of real poetry.”
Peter Oswald
Not Enough Rage is very heady and very gutsy.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-7-4
62 pages
R.R.P. £10.99
More information, endorsements, a sample poem and ordering can be found here.
“Combining a scientific eye with a poetic sensibility (and a sharp sense of humour), Martin Zarrop’s work is thought-provoking and wry. These poems take the long view and they never shy away from difficulty, each expertly using form to amplify content. Turn Around When Possible is an enlightening, enjoyable read.”
Helen Mort
“Whether he is looking back fondly on the seemingly mundane details of a working-class childhood or exploring the vastness of interstellar space, Martin Zarrop’s poems are distinguished by their metaphysical wit, humour, and sheer accessibility. There is a mathematical precision to every poem in this collection, a focus on details, that leads inevitably and, with a minimum of fuss, to memorable insights into love, affection, the ineluctable passage of time, and humanity’s place in the universe. Turn Around When Possible is a delight from start to finish and shows Zarrop writing at the height of his very considerable powers.”
David Cooke
Turn Around When Possible is very uncertain and very quirky.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-8-1
74 pages
R.R.P. £10.99
More information, endorsements, a sample poem and ordering can be found here.
Niall Campbell
“These calm and clear-eyed poems are remarkable in their refusal to be afraid. Holding darkness and light in delicate balance, they move from suffering and loss into what comes afterwards and later, finding consolation in the dogged aliveness of the natural world and, no less importantly, in the patterns and shapes of language itself. Sheila Lockhart has written a bold and beautiful book.”
Katharine Towers
The poems in Brother are a very heart-felt and very unflinching consideration of grief and healing after suicide.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-9-8
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50
More information, endorsements, a sample poem and pre-ordering can be found here.
Monday 6 November 2023
Launching Turn Around When Possible
V. Press is very very delighted to announce the publication of Turn Around When Possible by Martin Zarrop.
“Combining a scientific eye with a poetic sensibility (and a sharp sense of humour), Martin Zarrop’s work is thought-provoking and wry. These poems take the long view and they never shy away from difficulty, each expertly using form to amplify content. Turn Around When Possible is an enlightening, enjoyable read.”
Helen Mort
“Whether he is looking back fondly on the seemingly mundane details of a working-class childhood or exploring the vastness of interstellar space, Martin Zarrop’s poems are distinguished by their metaphysical wit, humour, and sheer accessibility. There is a mathematical precision to every poem in this collection, a focus on details, that leads inevitably and, with a minimum of fuss, to memorable insights into love, affection, the ineluctable passage of time, and humanity’s place in the universe. Turn Around When Possible is a delight from start to finish and shows Zarrop writing at the height of his very considerable powers.”
David Cooke
Turn Around When Possible is very uncertain and very quirky.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-8-1
74 pages
R.R.P. £10.99
A sample poem can be enjoyed below.
BUY TURN AROUND WHEN POSSIBLE NOW using the paypal options below.
the grimy windows, as he takes
his medication. Breakfast news
depresses. He sips coffee, guesses
it will rain, decides he must abort
the routine of his daily walk.
The clock is striking eight, then ten.
He’ll find some other way (again!)
to pass the time. Another cryptic?
Out of sight the slow tick-tick
of something drip drip dripping
from behind the bathroom light.
The phone is shrill. Is someone dead?
Hello, Sir – sorry – my name’s Smith.
A class parades inside his head.
You used to teach me in the sixth…
Oh, I recall – it’s thirty years
and I’m still here, but my dear wife…
I only rang to thank you, Sir,
for making such a difference to my life.
Monday 16 October 2023
Launching Not Enough Rage
V. Press is very very excited to launch Not Enough Rage by Gram Joel Davies.
“It’s rare for me to recognise, and feel kinship for, a lot of contemporary poetry. I recognise and feel kinship with this. Not Enough Rage is like a series of controlled explosions. Trembling houses. A burning voice. Experience dismantled and sewn back together with glowing needles and a mouth full of stars.”
Bobby Parker
“Like a Dylan Thomas of the age of mental illness, Gram Joel Davies leaps and flies through the world with dark exuberance. These are speakable poems, full of love for unlovable places and impossible people. In touch with but not tied to rap's rhymes and rhythms, this collection, for me, shifts the modern world into the painful focus of real poetry.”
Peter Oswald
Not Enough Rage is very heady and very gutsy.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-7-4
62 pages
R.R.P. £10.99
A sample poem can be enjoyed below.
BUY NOT ENOUGH RAGE NOW using the paypal options below.
Friday 29 September 2023
V. Press is very very happy to head into the autumn with news of forthcoming titles and a £500 donation to The Woodland Trust.
This is our second donation to the trust since we began publishing (2013
for a single chapbook anthology, then 2015 for our first solo-authored titles).
As a small press, one of our guiding principles is to operate as fairly
and sustainably as we can within our limited resources. Many of our titles are
print editions, using card and paper made from trees, hence our donation to a
cause that looks after trees. (We also use recycled paper for our collections
and FSC accredited paper for our pamphlets).
The photo above is V.
Press’s six titles for this year’s Michael Marks Pamphlets Awards at the top: Powerless Rangers by Jack McGowan, The Human Portion by Nicola Warwick, bed by Georgia Gildea, Braised in Wine by D.D. Holland, Dancing in Babylon by Elaine Baker and (m)othersongs by Sarah
Doyle.
The base features two
full collections out in October and November this year:
Not Enough
Rage (October) by Gram Joel Davies and Turn Around
When Possible (November) by Martin Zarrop. Brother by Sheila Lockhart
is our final pamphlet for the year (out at the end of November 2023).
More information about these titles can be found by following the links, and details of our two most recent and our three forthcoming titles can also be enjoyed below.
RECENTLY RELEASED
DANCING IN BABYLON
“Situated in the city of the apocalypse, and arranged as a play, this is a gentle and haunting sequence of poems. Within an anxiety-infused landscape of constant peril, Baker’s skillful narrator offers a counterbalance to the darkness of uncertainty. What ultimately triumphs here is the light, joy and beauty of what it is to love and be loved. These graceful, musical and emotionally resonant poems beautifully unfold their story of hope.” Vanessa Lampert“These poems are startling in their emotional clarity. They capture the surreal disconnection of lockdown as well as celebrating what a joy it is to be together once more. They are filled with a quietly powerful sense of wonder that is both passionate and melancholy. From tango dancers to taxi cab drivers, they draw us into a world that is heart-breaking in its beauty.”
Aoife Mannix
Dancing in Babylon is very elegiac and very cathartic.
ISBN: 978-1-7394122-0-3
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50
More information, endorsements, a sample poem and ordering can be found here.
(M)OTHERSONGS
Bobby Parker
“Like a Dylan Thomas of the age of mental illness, Gram Joel Davies leaps and flies through the world with dark exuberance. These are speakable poems, full of love for unlovable places and impossible people. In touch with but not tied to rap's rhymes and rhythms, this collection, for me, shifts the modern world into the painful focus of real poetry.”
Peter Oswald
Not Enough Rage is very heady and very gutsy.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-7-4
62 pages
R.R.P. £10.99
More information, endorsements, a sample poem and ordering can be found here.
“Combining a scientific eye with a poetic sensibility (and a sharp sense of humour), Martin Zarrop’s work is thought-provoking and wry. These poems take the long view and they never shy away from difficulty, each expertly using form to amplify content. Turn Around When Possible is an enlightening, enjoyable read.”
Helen Mort
“Whether he is looking back fondly on the seemingly mundane details of a working-class childhood or exploring the vastness of interstellar space, Martin Zarrop’s poems are distinguished by their metaphysical wit, humour, and sheer accessibility. There is a mathematical precision to every poem in this collection, a focus on details, that leads inevitably and, with a minimum of fuss, to memorable insights into love, affection, the ineluctable passage of time, and humanity’s place in the universe. Turn Around When Possible is a delight from start to finish and shows Zarrop writing at the height of his very considerable powers.”
David Cooke
Turn Around When Possible is very uncertain and very quirky.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-8-1
74 pages
R.R.P. £10.99
More information, endorsements, a sample poem and ordering can be found here.
BROTHER
“Sheila Lockhart has created something special with this pamphlet. Brother is a poignant study of remembrance but one that manages to be almost joyful in its close observation of this lost life and the still-living world that goes on without it. It is special writing – clear, brightly configured, riven by pain, and perfectly formed.”Niall Campbell
“These calm and clear-eyed poems are remarkable in their refusal to be afraid. Holding darkness and light in delicate balance, they move from suffering and loss into what comes afterwards and later, finding consolation in the dogged aliveness of the natural world and, no less importantly, in the patterns and shapes of language itself. Sheila Lockhart has written a bold and beautiful book.”
Katharine Towers
The poems in Brother are a very heart-felt and very unflinching consideration of grief and healing after suicide.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-9-8
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50
More information, endorsements, a sample poem and ordering can be found here.
Monday 11 September 2023
Launching (m)othersongs
Polly Atkin
“(m)othersongs is one of those rare examples of a collection of poetry that is both moving in content and accomplished in form. Each poem is expertly crafted, with a skilled use of structured form alongside beautifully crafted free verse. This textured and vibrant collection does not hold back, it faces the pain of endometriosis and infertility and holds that pain up to the light as valid experience of womanhood. The poetry world is enriched by this collection, and I shall return to it.”
Wendy Pratt
(m)othersongs is very meteorological and very moonlit.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-6-7
32 pages
RRP £6.50
A sample poem can be enjoyed below.
Friday 11 August 2023
Celebrating the summer & important news for customers!
This summer, V. Press will be out of office for a month for the first time in the press's ten-year history.
During this period over part of August and September, we will be temporarily removing most of our print titles from sale through Amazon.
Customers will still be able to place orders through the V. Press website, but the orders won't be sent out until we're back in office (the second week in September) so people may prefer to wait until then before ordering.
Our flash fiction eBooks (The Chemist's House, The Neverlands, Alice in Wonderland Syndrome and Set a Crow to Catch a Crow) will be unaffected by this longer holiday period and can be purchased as always through Amazon. The Vaginellas poetry chapbook will similarly still be available through Amazon over this period.
V. Press titles that are currently available to pre-order will also be unaffected, as their publication dates are later on in the year and we will be in the office again in plenty of time to sort these.
Print titles will also go back on sale on Amazon once we're back in office after this short break.
We thank you for your understanding and wish all our writers, readers and supporters a lovely summer!
PS To get V. Press news like this direct to your inbox (or to know when we post news like this on the website), sign up for our newsletters. You can do this by going to the right-hand side-bar (just below the V. Press logo) on the website home page. Type your email address into the blank text box there, then click on the subscribe button.
Monday 31 July 2023
The V. Press Prize for Poetry 2023
V. Press is very very delighted to announce that the winner of this year's V. Press Prize for Poetry is Ella-Louise Fisher!
This year's V.
Press Prize for Poetry shortlist of four manuscripts chosen by the
University of Worcester was particularly strong and varied.
V. Press
editor Sarah Leavesley enjoyed the range of inventive, innovative, humorous,
thought-provoking and moving poems in the shortlisted selections. In addition
to striking lines, images and individual poems, she was also impressed by the
care and crafting in getting these poems to work together as a whole, linked by
theme, form/presentation or a narrative thread.
Deciding
between these manuscripts was tough, but she eventually picked ‘Robins,
Feathers, Pearls’ by Ella-Louise Fisher as the winner of the V. Prize for
Poetry 2023 because of the completeness of its moving relatable narrative of
grief and healing. Powerful precise imagery, techniques like repetition and a
range of forms are used effectively across these poems to highlight different
aspects of loss and love, while also reinforcing each other and the overall
narrative.
Sarah is looking forward to working with Ella-Louise on her pamphlet for publication by V. Press in 2024.
Last Year's V. Press Prize for Poetry
“A book about eating disorders and abuse might sound like a tough read – but, although these poems teeter on the edge of an abyss, they are written with healthy doses of warmth and humour, and an appetite for life that proves moving and uplifting.” Dr David Swann
“Braised in Wine’s evocative, compelling and moving poems whet the appetite, while also exploring how what we eat and drink may feed into other aspects of life – body image, self-worth, relationships and more.” Sarah Leavesley, V. Press prize judge
Braised in Wine is very amusing and very genuine.
Winner of the V. Press Prize for Poetry 2022
Summer Reading
“These poems are startling in their emotional clarity. They capture the surreal disconnection of lockdown as well as celebrating what a joy it is to be together once more. They are filled with a quietly powerful sense of wonder that is both passionate and melancholy. From tango dancers to taxi cab drivers, they draw us into a world that is heart-breaking in its beauty.”
Aoife Mannix
Dancing in Babylon is very elegiac and very cathartic.
ISBN: 978-1-7394122-0-3
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50
More information, a sample poem and ordering for Dancing in Babylon can be found here.
PS To get V. Press news like this direct to your inbox (or to know when we post news like this on the website), sign up for our newsletters. You can do this by going to the right-hand side-bar (just below the V. Press logo) on the website home page. Type your email address into the blank text box there, then click on the subscribe button.
Monday 17 July 2023
Launching Dancing in Babylon
“These poems are startling in their emotional clarity. They capture the surreal disconnection of lockdown as well as celebrating what a joy it is to be together once more. They are filled with a quietly powerful sense of wonder that is both passionate and melancholy. From tango dancers to taxi cab drivers, they draw us into a world that is heart-breaking in its beauty.”
Aoife Mannix
Dancing in Babylon is very elegiac and very cathartic.
ISBN: 978-1-7394122-0-3
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50
A sample poem can be enjoyed below.
BUY DANCING IN BABYLON NOW using the paypal options below.
The cabbie (1)
He works nights, passing blue lights. Silence. Blue lights. But the streets are magic after dark.
He doesn’t need Satnav or stars. He knows Babylon’s backstreets like his daughters and sons, like their voices in the morning, their feet on the carpeted stairs.
While she cooks, nags, worries, gets them to bed, pours a drink, watches the news, he criss-crosses the city, office blocks to station forecourt to banks to city outskirts. Fare after fare, the night goes. He doesn’t miss conversation much. He’s learned to read his fares behind the glass like texts – it’s all in the eyes, above the mask. He observes the way they watch empty pavements, traffic lights, like they’re adverts.
He curses the gulls –
fucking birds.
He takes this city, while it’s sleeping, while no one else is looking, slipping lane to lane like he’s a king, and in between, he sings, picturing her warm and safe in his bed, breathing.
He doesn’t know when it will end. He thanks God he is working.
Friday 2 June 2023
The Saboteur Awards & Other News
V. Press is very very delighted that The Beautiful Open Sky by Hannah Linden has been shortlisted for THE SABOTEUR AWARD FOR BEST POETRY PAMPHLET 2023!
The final round of voting, to decide the winners in each category of the award, is open until Wednesday, 21 June, 2023 at 11.50pm. You can vote for The Beautiful Open Sky and your favourites in the other categories here.
REVIEWS
V. Press is delighted to share two Sphinx One Point of Interest reviews, on The Human Portion by Nicola Warwick and bed by Georgia Gildea.
Considering the close observation in The Human Portion by Nicola Warwick:“Nicola Warwick has sharp powers of observation which, allied to her skilled use of imagery, make for richly evocative poems. However, she also goes beyond description, sometimes even into the surreal, using nature as a way into deeper feelings.
[…] I sense an underlying yearning to reconcile the human with the natural world in this mesmerising, closely-observed pamphlet.”
Sue Wallace-Shaddad, OPOI, Sphinx, full review here.
More information, endorsements, a sample poem and ordering for The Human Portion can be found here.
Considering the use of the present tense in bed by Georgia Gildea:“Days no longer have names, nor do colours. They are undifferentiated. The more I look at what is in these poems the more I start to see what’s missing.
I don’t know where better is
or whether I want
to go there
Illness has no timescale, no certainties other than the immediate present and shrunken surroundings. This is set up from the opening lines […]”
D A Prince, OPOI, Sphinx, full review here.
INTERVIEWS
Georgia Gildea talks with her V. Press guest editor, Charlotte Gann, about silence, self, resistance and more in her recently released chapbook, bed (which addresses the experience of hospitalisation for anorexia), on The Understory Conversation here.
More theme listings for V. Press titles and links to articles where authors talk about their V. Press books can be found in The Reading Room.
RECENTLY RELEASED
“A book about eating disorders and abuse might sound like a tough read – but, although these poems teeter on the edge of an abyss, they are written with healthy doses of warmth and humour, and an appetite for life that proves moving and uplifting.” Dr David Swann
“Braised in Wine’s evocative, compelling and moving poems whet the appetite, while also exploring how what we eat and drink may feed into other aspects of life – body image, self-worth, relationships and more.” Sarah Leavesley, V. Press prize judge
Braised in Wine is very amusing and very genuine.
Winner of the V. Press Prize for Poetry 2022
LATER THIS YEAR
V. Press is delighted to have pre-ordering available already for a number of poetry titles out later this year.
“Combining a scientific eye with a poetic sensibility (and a sharp sense of humour), Martin Zarrop’s work is thought-provoking and wry. These poems take the long view and they never shy away from difficulty, each expertly using form to amplify content. Turn Around When Possible is an enlightening, enjoyable read.”Helen Mort
“Whether he is looking back fondly on the seemingly mundane details of a working-class childhood or exploring the vastness of interstellar space, Martin Zarrop’s poems are distinguished by their metaphysical wit, humour, and sheer accessibility. There is a mathematical precision to every poem in this collection, a focus on details, that leads inevitably and, with a minimum of fuss, to memorable insights into love, affection, the ineluctable passage of time, and humanity’s place in the universe. Turn Around When Possible is a delight from start to finish and shows Zarrop writing at the height of his very considerable powers.”
David Cooke
Turn Around When Possible is very uncertain and very quirky.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-8-1
74 pages
R.R.P. £10.99
More information, pre-ordering and a sample poem from Turn Around When Possible can be enjoyed here.
“It’s rare for me to recognise, and feel kinship for, a lot of contemporary poetry. I recognise and feel kinship with this. Not Enough Rage is like a series of controlled explosions. Trembling houses. A burning voice. Experience dismantled and sewn back together with glowing needles and a mouth full of stars.”
Bobby Parker
“Like a Dylan Thomas of the age of mental illness, Gram Joel Davies leaps and flies through the world with dark exuberance. These are speakable poems, full of love for unlovable places and impossible people. In touch with but not tied to rap's rhymes and rhythms, this collection, for me, shifts the modern world into the painful focus of real poetry.”
Peter Oswald
Not Enough Rage is very heady and very gutsy.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-7-4
62 pages
R.R.P. £10.99
A sample poem pre-ordering and a sample poem from Not Enough Rage can be found here.
Polly Atkin
“(m)othersongs is one of those rare examples of a collection of poetry that is both moving in content and accomplished in form. Each poem is expertly crafted, with a skilled use of structured form alongside beautifully crafted free verse. This textured and vibrant collection does not hold back, it faces the pain of endometriosis and infertility and holds that pain up to the light as valid experience of womanhood. The poetry world is enriched by this collection, and I shall return to it.”
Wendy Pratt
(m)othersongs is very meteorological and very moonlit.
ISBN: 978-1-7398838-6-7
32 pages
RRP £6.50
More information, pre-ordering and a sample poem from (m)othersongs can be found here.