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.

Launching The Beautiful Open Sky

V. Press is very very delighted to announce the publication of The Beautiful Open Sky by Hannah Linden.

“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. 

ISBN: 978-1-7398838-1-2

36 pages

R.R.P. £6.50

A sample poem can be enjoyed below.

BUY The Beautiful Open Sky NOW using the paypal options below.

The Beautiful Open Sky (with p&p options)

The Beautiful Open Sky (with p&p for UK delivery) £7.99 GBP The Beautiful Open Sky (with p&p for non-EU Rest of the World delivery) £17.00 GBP

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

Child

Snow-born to a drift of a girl.

My hand: her hand, HER hand.

My hand is a doll. Bend this way

bend that. Build snow-men—

coals for their eyes, the bruise

of their stares: boys that are men.

Girl drifts into woman. Mother 

me, she sighs; sister me the winter.

Grow. Don't grow. Pick a flower

for a self. Be a bulb in a cupboard.

Bloom me for Christmas. Sip of nectar

that sits with a view of the yard.

Home is the vinegar bottom of a jar.

She births more children, neighbours, sherbets

dipped bitter with liquorice. Today she wants me

film-star, cat-suited in red. Find me a song

she hasn't sung. She jived them orange.

She has rhythm but no time.

She catalogued me a fable, said you will

understand when you are a mother.

 

Listen to Hannah read her poem 'Mindstrap' here:

Launching Creature Without Building

V. Press is very very delighted to share the publication of Creature Without Building, a chapbook of poetry by Ray Vincent-Mills.

“Creature Without Building is a striking debut publication from Ray Vincent-Mills, a poet of exceptional skill and tenacity. The subtle – at times surreal – imagery only serves to underscore the fragmentation of identity provoked by hostile and challenging contemporary cultural politics. At the same time, the poems contained within are laced through with the rawness of lived experience and the precision of authentic observation. In their work, Vincent-Mills offers readers a lens through which to appraise and re-appraise their own complicity in the construction of a social fabric that so often excludes what it should enfold. I exhort readers to keep their eyes peeled for Vincent-Mills, whose star is sure to keep on rising.” 

Jack McGowan

“These poems speak for themselves: bold, bracing, and creating their own style and voice!”

Sarah Leavesley

Creature Without Building is very visceral and very captivating. 

Winner of the V. Press Prize for Poetry 2021

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-9-1

36 pages

R.R.P. £6.50

TRIGGER WARNING: Some of the poems in this chapbook deal with traumatic experiences that readers may potentially find disturbing, including domestic abuse, bulimia, rape, racism and graphic violence. 

A sample poem can be enjoyed below.

BUY Creature Without Building NOW using the paypal options below. 

Creature Without Building (with p&p options)

Creature Without Building (with p&p for UK delivery) £7.99 GBP Creature Without Building (p&p for non-EU Rest of the World delivery) £16.00 GBP

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

It takes two

A whistle directed at a small boy with a clumsy red scooter 

has the father’s eyes on me.

His lips snap back to the starting line.

We do not talk,

but his eyes call mine

and I think

there really is something in double takes.

In wondering if I took my time with the head like papier-mâché,

discarded the rest, dangled my fingers in…

What colour could I be today?

Summer Reading & other news!

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 on Thursday, 6 October 2022, themed 'The Environment'.

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

NEW TITLES NOW AVAILABLE

Fifteen Brief Moments in Time

V. Press is very very pleased to share details of our latest novella-in-flash, Fifteen Brief Moments in Time by Philip Charter.

“A book of unexpected insights and extraordinary grace, rippling with loveliness, sorrow, and finesse. All taking place in one room, bound by a single unraveling ribbon of time.”
David Eagleman

“Charter balances the light but rich ideas of philosophy and time with well-drawn if flawed characters, hustling and striving, and wishing for better lives. As one of them says, ‘There are no checks at the door. Anyone can walk in and expand their mind.’ I’m glad I took my seat for this novella and surrounded myself with the sounds and actions of its characters.” 
Tommy Dean

Fifteen Brief Moments in Time is a very fast and very philosophical novella-in-flash.

ISBN: 978-1-7398838-0-5 
52 pages
R.R.P. £7.99

A sample and ordering for Fifteen Brief Moments in Time can be found here.

You'll need an umbrella for this 

Meanwhile, our latest poetry collection, You'll need an umbrella for this by Victoria Richards, launched at the start of July.

“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.

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-8-4

74 pages

R.R.P. £10.99

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

FORTHCOMING & AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER

Creature Without Building

“Creature Without Building is a striking debut publication from Ray Vincent-Mills, a poet of exceptional skill and tenacity. The subtle – at times surreal – imagery only serves to underscore the fragmentation of identity provoked by hostile and challenging contemporary cultural politics. At the same time, the poems contained within are laced through with the rawness of lived experience and the precision of authentic observation. In their work, Vincent-Mills offers readers a lens through which to appraise and re-appraise their own complicity in the construction of a social fabric that so often excludes what it should enfold. I exhort readers to keep their eyes peeled for Vincent-Mills, whose star is sure to keep on rising.” 

Jack McGowan

“These poems speak for themselves: bold, bracing, and creating their own style and voice!” 
Sarah Leavesley

Creature Without Building is very visceral and very captivating. 

Winner of the V. Press Prize for Poetry 2021

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-9-1
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50

TRIGGER WARNING: Some of the poems in this chapbook deal with traumatic experiences that readers may potentially find disturbing, including domestic abuse, bulimia, rape, racism and graphic violence. 

A sample poem and pre-ordering for Creature Without Building, which is published in August 2022, can be found here.

AWARDS & REVIEWS

May We All Be Artefacts

V. Press is very delighted to see Chloe Hanks' May We All Be Artefacts receive a special mention in the Best poetry pamphlet category of the Saboteur Awards 2022. 

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

The full shortlist and special mentions for all categories of the award can be found here.

What love would smell like

"These are tender poems, rich in intertextual images.[…] Grout handles form and content with dexterity and a lightness of touch.[…] These poems of love, desire, and loss create an intimate portrayal of female love. ‘Ursa Minor’ describes home as ‘a place like/ Sunday morning coffee and two opposite words/ pushed together to make something delicious// and startling’. This description can equally be applied to Grout’s evocative pamphlet."

Mary Mulholland, The Alchemy Spoon, issue 6

A sample poem, more about What love would smell like and ordering for the chapbook can be found here.

Launching You'll need an umbrella for this

 

V. Press is very very delighted to announce the publication of You'll need an umbrella for this by Victoria Richards.

“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.

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-8-4

74 pages

R.R.P. £10.99

A sample poem can be enjoyed below.

BUY You'll need an umbrella for this NOW using the paypal options below.

You'll need an umbrella for this (including P&P)

You'll need an umbrella for this (including P&P for U.K. only) £13.00 GBP You'll need an umbrella for this (with P&P for non-EU Rest of World delivery) £22.00 GBP

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

You’ll need an umbrella for this 

I hold on to the handlebars of the buggy 

like they’re an anchor, tethering me to the pavement. 

Without them I am rudderless, adrift – 

my stomach full of metal wool, cutting me slowly. 

No one can see me bleeding right here 

on the street. They just say, “How’s the baby?” 

as my spleen ruptures, my liver withers, twists itself 

inside out. My gums shrivel up around my teeth, 

which start dropping like rain. They form pearlescent 

puddles for you to crunch through. The wave 

surges up, up, up and breaks over the berth of my inner ear;

my eyes leak floodwaters, red with the bodies 

of billions of crustaceans who meet a slow, wet end. 

How ironic – to be a creature born of sea, dead by drowning. 

Launching Fifteen Brief Moments in Time

V. Press is very very delighted to share the publication of Fifteen Brief Moments in Time, a novella-in-flash by Philip Charter.

“A book of unexpected insights and extraordinary grace, rippling with loveliness, sorrow, and finesse. All taking place in one room, bound by a single unraveling ribbon of time.”

David Eagleman

“Charter balances the light but rich ideas of philosophy and time with well-drawn if flawed characters, hustling and striving, and wishing for better lives. As one of them says, ‘There are no checks at the door. Anyone can walk in and expand their mind.’ I’m glad I took my seat for this novella and surrounded myself with the sounds and actions of its characters.” 

Tommy Dean

Fifteen Brief Moments in Time is a very fast and very philosophical novella-in-flash.

ISBN: 978-1-7398838-0-5

52 pages

R.R.P. £7.99

Flash sample:

Luca Cangemi and everyone he knows will be long dead, but the moment will come. Theoretical physicists believe it will be anywhere from 2.8 to 22 billion years in the future. In that moment, everything reverses.

    The Big Crunch is a cosmological event in our future and our past in which the density of matter grows sufficiently that gravitational attraction overcomes the expansion that began with the Big Bang. Entropy reverses and the second law is broken. Chaos retreats.

    Order is regained as space contracts. Broken rocks reform and decayed bodies reanimate. We live our lives in reverse, unexperiencing everything we did the first time around, moving backwards, shrinking towards birth. Instead of questions about creation, we search for the harbinger of order. Who began this? What is our final form?

    Luca imagines the crowds at his book signings dissipating and the offices of his academic fellowships decreasing in size. Wrong turns are righted and his family grows closer. His briefcase heals itself and he returns it to his mother. Life rewinds back to him as a young boy, unreading the words that inspired him to look for meaning in all of this. If it can all be reversed, are all shared experiences undone? All bonds broken? Luca returns into his parents, then ancestors, apes, microbes, and nothing. The earth, the planets and stars all merge into one perfectly ordered mass.

    Yet, this is not an end, but another beginning in which the universe is reborn in another bang. Galaxies, planets, plants, and philosophy professors will live the same lives as they did billions of years before (and after). The process of positive and negative entropy repeats and we all make the same mistakes again.

Time elapsed: the infinitely repeating cycle of a universe

 

Excerpt from 'The Direction of Everything'

LAUNCH EVENT

Phil will be launching Fifteen Brief Moments in Time with an online Zoom reading and Q & A on Monday, 6 June 2022 at 7pm (London time). Please email him on philipcharterauthor@gmail.com to get the Zoom link. 

Spring offers, Reviews, Events

 

V. Press has two special offers that run until the end of March 2022 - perfect for Mother's Day, treating yourself or as a gift for someone else.*

'Dashing Duets' offer - any two of the eligible full poetry collections for £17.50 including UK delivery only, eligible titles are: knots, tangles, fankles, A Woven Rope, A Bluebottle in Late October, The boy who couldn't say his name, The Aesthetics of Breath, Like love, Unable Mother, Blink , The Nagasaki Elder and Bolt Down This Earth. Please make sure you enter the titles of the two eligible collections you'd prefer in the paypal text boxes when you purchase. Otherwise, you will be sent two picked out by V. Press.

Dashing Duets offer with delivery options

Dashing Duets 2-book collection bundle for U.K. delivery only £17.50 GBP Dashing Duets 2-book collection bundle for Rest of the World £70.00 GBP

1st eligible title choice?

2nd eligible title choice?

'Pocket some flash' offer - choose any one of the eligible flash pamphlets (print versions only) for £7.99 (including p&p for UK-only delivery) and get a copy of a pocket novella (Always Another Twist or Kaleidoscope) included for no extra cost, eligible flash pamphlets are (print copies only): Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, Midnight Laughter, There's Something Macrocosmic About All of This or Hometown. Please make sure you enter the title of the eligible flash pamphlet you'd prefer in the paypal text box when you purchase. Otherwise, you will be sent one picked out by V. Press.

'Pocket some flash' offer with delivery options

Pocket some flash offer for U.K. delivery only £7.99 GBP Pocket some flash offer for Rest of the World £35.00 GBP

Which eligible flash pamphlet?

* Both these offers run until the end of March 2022 (unless stock runs out sooner) and are intended for UK delivery only. For delivery elsewhere, V, Press would advise checking the titles' individual prices, as these may be a cheaper option for international customers. NB Any international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

 

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER

V. Press is very very pleased to share details of this spring's novella-in-flash, Fifteen Brief Moments in Time by Philip Charter, which is now available for pre-order.

“A book of unexpected insights and extraordinary grace, rippling with loveliness, sorrow, and finesse. All taking place in one room, bound by a single unraveling ribbon of time.”

David Eagleman

“Charter balances the light but rich ideas of philosophy and time with well-drawn if flawed characters, hustling and striving, and wishing for better lives. As one of them says, ‘There are no checks at the door. Anyone can walk in and expand their mind.’ I’m glad I took my seat for this novella and surrounded myself with the sounds and actions of its characters.” 

Tommy Dean

Fifteen Brief Moments in Time is a very fast and very philosophical novella-in-flash.

ISBN: 978-1-7398838-0-5
52 pages
R.R.P. £7.99

A sample and pre-ordering for this novella-in-flash is available here.

V. Press is delighted to share details of  our next poetry collection, You'll need an umbrella for this by Victoria Richards, which is now available for pre-order.

“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.

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-8-4

74 pages

R.R.P. £10.99

A sample poem and pre-ordering for the collection is available here.

REVIEW NEWS

What love would smell like

"The poems in this debut collection are filled with love and longing, delivered in a calm, wistful tone. It’s a romantic, gentle publication. The female body is always present, often wrapped in sensuous, languid language communicating tenderness and intimacy."

Tamsin Hopkins, Sphinx, full review here.

"Each poem invents its own form with the result that the poems are very fresh. They jump off the page. SK Grout does a wonderful job with this and what I enjoyed most was her ability to hold us in the moment."

Anne Bailey, Sphinx, full review here.

A sample, poem, more information and ordering for What love would smell like can be found here.

EVENTS

Sarah Doyle will be reading from her V. Press pamphlet Something so wild and new in this feeling and talking about Dorothy Wordsworth at an in-person event this spring in Hertfordshire:

Ware Poets, Friday, 13 May 2022, 8pm, at Ware Arts Centre, Kibes Lane, Ware, Hertfordshire SG12 7BS. £5

No need to book in advance, tickets will be available to buy on the door. The event will have a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, with an open mic for those wishing to share a poem of their own on the night. Sarah will be signing books.