Announcing the Prize, Design Thanks & Reviews

V. PRESS PRIZE FOR POETRY 2020

V. Press is very very delighted to announce the winner of this year's V. Press Prize for Poetry run in conjunction with the University of Worcester.

V. Press editor Sarah Leavesley has chosen 'May We All Be Artefacts' by Chloe Hanks as this year's winner, with the winning pamphlet based on this portfolio to be published by V. Press in spring 2021.

She said: “This year’s winning portfolio for the V. Press Prize for Poetry is ‘May We All Be Artefacts’ – chosen from the University of Worcester’s shortlist of five for its striking and thought-provoking imagery, focal slants and choice of words. These are poems crafted with a painter’s eye for vivid details and a poet’s ear for language, its sounds and music. The scenes brought to life feel real, relevant and resonant.”

DESIGN THANKS

V. Press would like to say a VERY VERY BIG THANKS to Ruth Stacey who has just stepped down from designing the poetry covers.

Ruth was one of V. Press's founding editors in 2013 and has designed most of the press's poetry covers since then.

Seven years of design for the press and 40 odd poetry covers is no small feat. To put this in its full amazing context, both Ruth and V. Press editor Sarah Leavesley have given all their time and energy to their roles at V. Press on an unpaid basis. 

V. Press is extremely grateful to have had Ruth on board for so long doing this and would like to say a very big thank you  – from the press, from Sarah Leavesley and on behalf of all our V. Press poets.

REVIEWS

An Inheritance

V. Press is delighted to share a number of great reviews, including one about Diane Simmons' “exquisite prose” in An Inheritance, which was shortlisted for the Saboteur Awards Best Novella 2020.

“[…] what we have with An Inheritance is a gripping novella-in-flash that takes us on this journey at breakneck speed, as we flit through seventy years and four generations of family life – with all its love, grittiness, despair, hope, loss, grief and evolution.

“Diane Simmons delivers a story that is heartfelt, desperately hopeful and heartrending – the way Simmons is able to move the reader in so few words just showcases what a master she is of the flash fiction genre […]

“[…] An Inheritance is a fabulously woven collection that moves us to feel many emotions, whether we want to or not, and causes us to reflect or face our own familial differences or circumstances. Powerful and beautiful in all the right ways!”

Ross Jeffery, Storgy Magazine, full review here

A sample flash, more information and ordering for An Inheritance can be found here.

Alice In Wonderland Syndrome

"These 29 micro stories, which can be read in one sitting, are so interconnected that the effect is of one short story, told in fragments—a fitting format for a meditation on the unraveling of a marriage, with guest stars (dogs, lovers, therapists, the tiger cat, a rat). The compressed power of flash, however, combined with Pokrass’ lyricism, invites the reader to re-read each piece, and unpack each morsel line by line.[...]

"At a time when we are all living in said movie, Meg Pokrass’ new flash offering is a reminder that, while this collective unmooring is new and unsettling, our emotional lives have already pulled us through a great many rabbit holes. At times surreal, at times elliptical, Alice In Wonderland Syndrome is ultimately an earthy and poignant grouping of flash fiction for an upside-down world."

Amanda Krupman, SmokeLong Quarterly, full review here

A sample flash, more information and ordering for Alice In Wonderland Syndrome can be found here.

Patience

"[...] Lewis’ short, crisp phrases are excellent at conveying the profoundly relatable experiences of uncertainty, vulnerability and ennui. Her poems explore both the sense of helplessness and futility in trying to both come to terms with the vast abstractions of time and space, as well as the experience of these concepts within intimate structures such as relationships and memories.[...]

"‘Patience’ reinforces the idea that the time and space around us is charged, not necessarily with any sententious significance, but with a more elemental and formidable force: the ‘electrical surge of the universe’. In this idea of patience, there are always possibilities [...]"

Phoebe Walker, Sabotage Reviews, full review here

A sample poem, more information and ordering for Patience can be found here.

About Leaving

"[...] It is such details of syntax and diction that are a key strength in this collection. The poems are plain on the surface, letting the emotional intensity of the events and responses they describe come through unembarrassed by poetic expression, aided by care and attention."

"[...] See again the clarity and directness of the writing. ‘Absent’ is in fact a pantoum, so its clarity, preserved throughout its length, is a mark of skill as well as disposition. [...]"

Stephen Payne, Sabotage Reviews, full review here

A sample poem, more information and ordering for About Leaving can be found here.

The Protection of Ghosts

"[...]The way Bolderston moves through time so smoothly is a kind of magic. [...] Time doesn’t work linearly in these poems; the past has never left. It’s in the small details. [...] her project has much to say about the way people and places are affected by history. [...]"

Eric Nguyen,  diaCRITICS, full review here

A sample poem, more information and ordering for The Protection of Ghosts can be found here.

Launching Hierarchy of Needs: A Retelling

V. Press is very very delighted to announce the launch of Hierarchy of Needs A Retelling, a collaborative pamphlet of poems by Charley Barnes and Claire Walker.

“This pamphlet is a reminder of the extraordinary paradoxes and dualities cultivated between the shaky coexistence of the natural world within the Anthropocene. We are drawn into other-worldly ecologies populated by ‘giddy’ ‘warriors’ ‘fenced in (for freedom)’ and ‘giants, balancing on toes’; yet also confronted with the harsh and tangible realities that confirm the mortal fragility of our environments, even those we create for ourselves through technology.  There is adept writing skill evident in these poems: fresh anthropomorphic voices propagate amongst lyrical lines that converge with direct, demanding declaratives; violent vivid images give way to mellow half-rhymes and assonance; form is executed with precision and also reworked into affecting challenge and experiment. Here lies the adroitness of a pamphlet that moves like rhizomes – with purpose, poise and intelligence.

“Re-working nature’s contradictions and vulnerabilities, and ultimately its needs and desires with this resolute energy, offers a striking parallel: as women writers we might be seen, but not always heard. For me then, this pamphlet is more than just an excellent example of eco-poetry; it is a sophisticated and spirited example of eco-feminism. This is a Mother Earth who nurtures, protects, provides but is also ‘bounty hunter’ with unmistakable, fierce needs of her own: unapologetically pursued and satisfied. ‘Something beautiful’.”

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. The book is split into two sections, each headed with its own recreations of the original five-layered hierarchical pyramid. They feel like a catechism – questions that we must keep on asking ourselves.

“The poems are each beautiful and spared from unnecessary clutter – there is such gentleness and consideration to be gained from the reading. Nature is personified and within the poems there is an aching, a longing to be freed from our human bonds – to be able to answer the age-old call of the seasons without our interference.

“Some of the poems writhe with wonderful touches of the fairy tale. Some express nature’s desire to work in harmony with us as it did in days long past. Some stand in stark contrast to our modern, technology reliant world. Some convey a sense of eternal searching, of pain and grief. Some are piquant with our own bodies, loves, families and deaths. Under the current circumstances and the strange times we are living through, this really does feel like a needed book. We could all do with being a bit more tree.”

Jane Burn

Hierarchy of Needs is very structured, very inquisitive.

ISBN: 978-1-9161096-8-1

R.R.P. £6.50

A sample poem from the pamphlet can be enjoyed below.



For Agatha, who loved this place

I wake slow, see no need to rush,
in this, my centenary year.
I’ve earned this slowness,
have honed the art
of observation since I took root:
planted For Agatha, who loved this place.

My own potential realised,
I know all seasons of people,
have taken their stories down
and filled their lungs in return.

Mothers push their babies around
and I shade their tired eyes,
wish them unbroken sleep tonight.

Children come and go – grow –
race around my sturdy trunk,
build dens inside the hollow of my heart.
They weave up my branches, so light
I shoulder them so they might stretch
towards the sun.

I have seen whole family trees expand.
Generations of the same tribe
picnic together at my feet.
At times, this warms me
more than a summer day:
generations gabbling, together, alive.

Here, I witness life,
snap a twig of hair and carve a quill,
scribe everything into my parchment
to pass on. Collecting roots, truths to tell,
for Agatha, who loved this place.


Monday, 3 August 2020 - Zoom launch

Charley and Claire would love for friends, family and fellow writers to join them in celebrating the release of this new pamphlet on August 3, at an event held via Zoom. The event will also feature guest readers Ruth Stacey, Katy Wareham-Morris and Jane Burn, along with a Question and Answer session. The Facebook event page can be found here. Please note: Zoom details will be available closer to the time. The Zoom space will open at 7:15pm for a 7:30pm start.

VIDEO READINGS

Launching This Lexia & Other Languages

V. Press is very very delighted to launch This Lexia & Other Languages by Helen Kay.

“In these poems about the relationship between a mother and son, about dyslexia and language itself (‘the dangling hooks of “f”s and “t”s’), Helen Kay forges an idiom which is both tender and firm. Kay draws us into the experience of living in a society shaped around neurotypical expectations. The poems that result are angry and searching. But in feeling out the boundaries of language, they achieve a ‘seedling syntax’ which is alive and beautiful.” Will Harris

“These poems are quicksilver – deft, concise, witty and full of fresh ways of saying things.  With empathy, and sometimes anger, they skilfully lead the reader into a world of words that confounds expectation but contains its own very specific delights.” Judy Brown

“We are told ‘all shapes are made to fit’, but sometimes the world has a preordained notion of ‘shape’ that does not include people with dyslexia. In Helen Kay’s latest publication, she reflects on a ‘mother-son bond’, as they navigate a childhood where dyslexic can mean being ‘labelled “slow’’’. This Lexia & Other Languages will awaken you to their world, to ‘hear it, taste it, feel it’ in all its devastating complexity.” Elisabeth Sennitt Clough

This Lexia & Other Languages is very genuine and very human.

A sample poem from This Lexia & Other Languages can be enjoyed below.

ISBN: 978-1-9161096-9-8
32 pages
R.R.P. £6.50

Short Term Memory Loss

It starts with an        empty tight-lipped jug
or a foggy eviction        from my narrative.
Familiar names are        clinging to my tongue
I lose my spectacles        and wash my purse.
A slush of turnips        blackens in a pan.

Others fear dementia.        I was born misplacing
mid-stairs, purpose        waves goodbye. I float.
Quiz time. I parrot        an answer, claim its mine.
At night I lie awake        to rescue hunches
that it started with a ‘P’        or was it ‘K’?

Next day fills        with Mrs Malaprop
whotsit pen drives        brillig crib sheets.
Only the key things        cross the neural pathway:
the days that leaked        the saltiness of now
the dregs of pain        the scent of being loved.