10 Years of Publications -- 2023

2025 marks ten years of V. Press publishing solo-authored titles and, as part of our celebrations, we're sharing our year-by-year publications over that period.

The press was originally launched at Ledbury Poetry Festival in July 2013 with a one-off poetry chapbook anthology before moving on to solo-authored poetry pamphlets in 2015.

Our first solo-authored poetry collection and our first flash fiction pamphlet came out in 2016. There have been illustrated poetry pamphlets, a dual-authored poetry pamphlet and a full-length flash fiction title along the way.

Today, we highlight our 2023 titles and some extra delights from that year!

The Human Portion by Nicola Warwick winner of the poetry category of East Anglian Book Awards 2023

The Beautiful Open Sky by Hannah Linden shortlisted for Saboteur Awards 2023 Best Poetry Pamphlet

This post comes just ahead of National Poetry Day next Thursday (2 Oct). 

V. Press editor Sarah Leavesley/James will be in the New Brighton area next week and enjoying the Wirral Poetry Festival that weekend. You can find out more about what's on offer at the festival here. If you're there and spot Sarah -- most likely at the poetryfilm screening, Five New Books event or Where Once the Tide poetry walk -- do say hello!

The Human Portion -- Nicola Warwick -- 1 March 2023

“Nicola Warwick’s poems take place in entrancing, liminal territory in which the human sensibility encounters the natural world. Deep kinship, mystery and otherness are conveyed through acute observation and transformative imagination. The language is precise and often surprises. Take, for instance ‘the sky, red as a swallow's throat’ (‘Late high summer’), or ‘roots easing through earth / were a voice making itself unheard’ (‘And the trees (said)’). These poems reveal a special sensitivity and to read them is to feel our ‘Human Portion’ enlarged. Highly recommended.” Moniza Alvi

“‘How to speak of this’ Warwick asks in these nuanced, thoughtful poems concerning landscape, seascape and wildlife. Encompassing intimate losses of family and nature, the collection delicately explores our ‘egg-tight grief’ in distilled moments of striking imagery and accomplishment. Ultimately, these poems hope that we may find in nature, as  ‘The Courteous Farmer’ does, a ‘second heart’.” Heidi Williamson

The Human Portion is very liminal and very grounded.

A sample poem from the chapbook can be enjoyed below. More information and ordering for The Human Portion can be found here.

The Chitterings

Night by night, I listen
for the soft scrape of their claws
as they slip out from under the eaves.

You doze beside me, unaware 
of the little interlopers who stir only 
as we are readying ourselves for sleep.

I wait for the dusky light to fade, 
for their ragged shapes to take to the air, 
for them to stutter like ticker-tape into the dark.

My ears are tuned like a child’s for their speech,
their squeals and calls, a quiet chit-chittering
as they gather for the off.

You say it’s all in my head, these creatures
that will not silence, suggest I still them 
with something like mindfulness.

On those nights when sleep won’t come, 
I watch from the window for their exodus,
count them out, count them all back in.
 

bed -- Georgia Gildea -- 17 March 2023

“bed takes us on a heart-wrenching journey through hospital admission and discharge, opening doors inward and outward as it explores the divides of self and space and asks: ‘where do I belong’? This astounding collection locates the ‘I’ in innovative form as much as in content: the ‘empty / stem’ of the ‘I’ is evoked in poems that run narrow – yet stand tall – on the page, stanzas re-assemble into ‘I’ shapes and, achingly, the ‘I’ is an ideogram for ‘a goodbye / hug’. Amid disappearances, erasures and elisions, bed is a collection that recovers the ‘I’ from an overwhelming ‘landscape of white static / white and muted’. These pages crackle with inventiveness; here is an electrifying new voice.” Sarah Barnsley

“I love bed most for its clarity and depth. Its language, imagery, use of form, and framing, are all wonderfully delicate. From its diminutive, lower-case title on, bed invites its readers straight inside to experience ‘a life pared down to a spoon’. These poems are like tiny islands – boats – beds – drifting and bumping on their sea – ward – of white space and grief. It’s stunningly generous, as these seemingly small pieces offer up huge insights, both compassionate and enlightening. They draw a self struggling to navigate a bruising landscape. This is work that is both refreshingly direct and beautifully crafted.” V. Press Guest Editor Charlotte Gann

bed is very raw and very real. 

This title is out of stock but more information about bed can be found here.

 

Braised in Wine -- D.D. Holland -- 28 April 2023

“Braised in Wine is a striking debut from D.D. Holland. There is a veritable smorgasbord of ways (case in point) in which food can make its way into common parlance, but Holland breathes new life into her subject matter, exploring the familiar and at times painful emotions that eating can elicit. The poems contained within Braised in Wine unpick how food can fashion the self through memory and relationships, using taste as a way to express a deeper well of feeling. Through small and large acts of confession, Holland conjures powerful and poignant images that bury themselves in the mind. I can’t wait to see what’s next.” Dr Jack McGowan 

“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

A sample poem from the chapbook can be enjoyed below. More information and ordering for Braised in Wine can be found here.

Life Advice

Lick the custard jug.

Take eight canapes the first time around.

Double, triple and quadruple dip your crackers;

turn out the crisp packet and suck off the salt.

Dip your spoon directly into the jar,

eat the grapes from the cheese board

and chew on the garnish.

Slurp your soup,

take seven sugars in your tea

and drink your coke full-fat.

Gnaw on chicken bones, then

suck your fingers clean.

Always ensure you are first in line

for birthday cake.

Belch appreciatively,

use your sleeve as a napkin,

dig your elbows into the table,

seize the wrong cutlery

in the wrong hands and

refuse to leave without seconds.

Force meteor showers,

cure existence,

evade the certainty of death.

Lick the custard jug.

Dancing in Babylon -- Elaine Baker -- 17 July 2023

“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.

A sample poem from the chapbook can be enjoyed below. More information and ordering for Dancing in Babylon can be found here.

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.

(m)othersongs -- Sarah Doyle -- 11 September 2023

 “(m)othersongs is a moving, visceral exploration of the othering nature of un-motherhood. Body-shame, medical misogyny and grief are exorcised in shape-shifting forms with veins of pain running through them, in which everything from cloud formations to sea gooseberries on a shoreline speak of the changing seasons of the human body. This is a world where ‘wooden babies’ and rag dolls are born in place of children, and the womb – a ‘special bedroom’ haunted by endometriosis, fibroids and myths of creation – is surrendered with the mantra – ‘it’s only a pocket, and one you’re not using’. Both heartbreaking and strangely transporting, these are powerful and necessary poems.”
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.

 A sample poem from the chapbook can be enjoyed below. More information and ordering for (m)othersongs can be found here.

This has been the sunniest May since records began*

said the weatherman and every day my skin

absorbed the air’s hot butter; every day

through May, a barometric melt and swelter

until I was slick with sunshine. My eyes

ripened from green to gold, and freckles

swarmed my arms like fire ants. Helium

trailed in my wake, a shimmer of heat-haze

to burn out the dazzled retinas, as mercury

rose from toes to thighs to breasts. I blazed

with the fizz and pop of hydrogen,

a meteorological Midas making a yellow 

mess of everything I touched, spilling

from room to room like steam, hissing

and flexing on limbs of plasma. I was fat

with photons, my mouth a glary corona

flaring electricity wrought from a heaving

belly. Month long, I radiated, basking

in the glow of my own brilliance, alive

with convection and luminous to the core.

But May broke like an egg, the sun’s

ruined yolk puddling round my feet,

as I succumbed to clammy blue in the rains

and the hail and the thunder of June.

First published in Finished Creatures 

Not Enough Rage -- Gram Joel Davies -- 16 October 2023

“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.

A sample poem from this full-length collection can be enjoyed below. More information and ordering for Not Enough Rage can be found here.

Tourist in My Own Town

Nobody chooses which home to grow up in.

I’ve become like gapers or beachcombers,

where the houses overlook a tar-stained groyne.

Our terrace, filled by other lives,

a street that centres on the eye

like sea horizon. There, a door

I stood one time.

In the form of flip-flopper or pebble-hoarder,

I’ve imagined ways it could have been

– no polished bone – another middle house.

No mother who ate mussels closed or talked

towards her children as if ready-grown.

In the home I didn’t choose. On the step 

I stood alone. Out along the sound:

three doors down.

Now I’ve turned to paddler, dipper dabbling

in rockpool life. Beyond the briny walls

in which a father may have pinched himself

and woken up a hermit, crabshelled,

sunken with a chest of gold

tobacco and green wine. Not the home

I wanted then – out along the prom

some length – three before the end.

I’ve taken on the faces of the flingers

and the fetchers, reckoning the lookout hut,

whose windows ring its stippled sections,

was the place a sister (last who fled)

once pierced her lips and other places,

painted all points red. Not a home selected,

on the edge of land. Sleeves rolled downward,

three along the strand.

From deck chairs by the channels, curved

through sandbanks, where I’ve consumed

the views of masted roofs, and thought about

a brother who took every brunt and buffet.

How, perhaps, he caught a wave.

This isn’t where I meant to be, three

before the end, out from the mainland.

Bucking on the trend.

Turn Around When Possible -- Martin Zarrop -- 6 November 2023

“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.

A sample poem from this full-length collection can be enjoyed below. More information and ordering for Turn Around When Possible can be found here.

Achievement

Grumbling thunder gently shakes
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.
 

Brother -- Sheila Lockhart -- 24 November 2023

“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.

A sample poem from the chapbook can be enjoyed below. More information and ordering for Brother can be found here.

Gaia

In my arms you hardly weighed a thing,

the day I returned you to our Mother. 

She spread herself wide to receive you. 

Then locked her doors forever. 

The adamantine scythe left so little

when it cut you. 

Yes, there was plenty of blood, 

but where was all the rest? A seed 

forced into my heart, tangled roots. 

I remember how thirsty you were, 

how your dust soaked up the rain. 

How the roses blossomed.