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Primers II Shortlist: Emma Jeremy
Time for another glimpse into the work of a Primers II shortlisted poet, as we deliberate picking the final three from a ten-strong shortlist. Our first two featured poems were ‘Copper Calf’ by Ben Bransfield and ‘Leave’ Cynthia Miller. Today, we’re exploring the work of Emma Jeremy. Emma Jeremy Emma Jeremy is 23 years old and originally from Bristol….
Poetry School Primers II Shortlist: Cynthia Miller
Leading up to the incredibly exciting announcement of this year’s 3 Primers Poets, we’re showcasing those 10 poets on the shortlist. We’ve already posted the work of the alphabetically superior Ben Bransfield, and next up for your enjoyment it’s one poem from Cynthia Miller. Judges Jacob Sam-La Rose & Jane Commane will be making their final…
Poetry School
Review: ‘The Immigration Handbook’ by Caroline Smith
The Immigration Handbook collects together stories of people caught up in the unwieldy, impersonal and often seemingly illogical world of government bureaucracy. Not unlike the recently released I, Daniel Blake, such a bureaucracy is shown to brutalise those who depend on it the most. Caroline Smith is perfectly placed to write these stories, having worked…
Kim Moore Primers II Shortlist: Ben Bransfield
Welcome to the first in a series of sneak peeks at this year’s Primers candidates. The shortlist has been announced and the judges, Jane Commane from Nine Arches Press and Jacob Sam-La Rose, are busily reading the full submissions to decide which three poets will receive mentoring and publication in the second Primers: Debut Poetry Shorts. We’re eager to…
Poetry School
Seven Highlights from Poetry in Aldeburgh
‘Hinterlands’ – Blake Morrison, Anne-Marie Fyfe Blake Morrison and Anne-Marie Fyfe opened the Poetry in Aldeburgh readings, both poets recalling a spectrum of desolate coastal locations, including in and around Aldeburgh. Morrison’s ‘Ballad of Shingle Street’ was a stirring example, offering an insistent rhythm (one line simply “again again again again”) that sounded like someone…
BenRogers
Florence Cox Wins Our Poetry in Aldeburgh Pronto Comp!
Florence Cox is the winner of our Aldeburgh ‘Pronto’ Competition. Congratulations! Congratulations also to three runners-up Patricia Wooldridge, Michael Hutchinson, and Roger West. We’re back from the beach, having had a brilliant time at the Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival – talking to the audience, sidling up to possible new poet-tutors, and enjoying some fantastic readings. Ben Rogers, our…
Poetry School
Coming Soon…The Spring Term Programme will be announced on 18th November
While the autumnal plane tree leaves flutter down Lambeth Walk, we are adding the final dabs of colour to the spring programme, which will be ready for booking on 18th November. Crack open your notebooks and buff up your tablets, we’ll have a fantastic selection of activities for you to pick from. Cast your minds…
Poetry School
Review: ‘Noir’ by Charlotte Gann
Charlotte Gann’s debut poetry collection is filled with dark and anxious poems that aren’t afraid to leave their often-worrying situations unresolved. Noir is a tightly woven collection of half-told narratives, which leave room for the reader’s imagination. The opening poem, ‘Puzzle’, reveals, manifesto-like, the intentions of the book: If I look closely I can…
John Challis
Primers Shortlist and Longlist Announced
This July, we set up our virtual in-tray and invited submissions to the second year of our publishing and mentoring programme, Primers, in association with Nine Arches Press. Our Primers scheme will find three new poets whose work we’d like to foster, publish and promote. Thousands of poems later, Judges Jane Commane and Jacob Sam-La Rose…
Poetry School
‘Still Very Green’
The women buried here are sinful. Holding hands with men they shouldn’t have, touching ladies they called their friends in ways that friends don’t touch. The sex has not gone from this garden, I think, Couples walking in, so many pairs of sinners, and So much green. Green, the colour before a bud blooms, Green,…
Bridget Minamore
‘Siberia – Irrational representation III’ by Perienne Christian and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Siberia is one of the most sparsely populated places on Earth. Against a black backdrop, Perienne Christian’s etching is informed by her own family’s history, the harrowing escape of her grandparents from a hard labour camp, walking at night, hiding and surviving on tiny amounts of food. See the interview with Perienne here. At Poetry…
BenRogers
Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews Perienne Christian
You have an interest in ancient walkways. Can you tell us why you are generally interested in this, do you walk them, and is there one in particular that you have recently been drawn to? Perienne: I am interested in the history of human presence and movement across landscape. The old walkways, changed and shaped…
BenRogers
Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews Emily Berry
Unnerving and commanding figures of authority recur in your poetry, including the Doctor in ‘The Incredible History of Patient M.’, the biographer in ‘Our Love Could Spoil Dinner’, and Arlene in the Arlene poems. What do you think draws you to write about these figures, and do you see the writing about them to be…
BenRogers
‘My Perpendicular Daughter’ by Emily Berry and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Confusion and resentment begin today’s poem by Emily Berry, where a new mother complains that her daughter has not fulfilled expectations: “I wish they hadn’t lied/ like that”. Spare language and few tangible details add to the clinical and disturbing atmosphere, in which a woman is left exposed to dispassionate and questionable responses from unseen…
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‘RILT’ by Geraldine Clarkson and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Beginning with a word that can mean ‘disturbed’ or ‘off balance’, today’s poem, which won the 2014 Ware Sonnet Prize, sees one of a group of “crooked-leg” girls take decisive action and assert her “right” to go where she wishes, over the hill and down to the sea. At Poetry in Aldeburgh: Geraldine Clarkson will…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Geraldine Clarkson
An Interview with Geraldine Clarkson
“The boundaries can be a little porous, and spoonfuls of poetry can be stirred into daily life…”
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‘Orpheus’ Imagination as a Subterranean Car Park’ by Ruth Padel and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Ruth Padel has spoken of Orpheus’ power to forge connections: “Orpheus draws everyone towards him and brings his audience together”. In today’s poem, the Orpheus myth resounds in a perhaps unexpected location, the underworld of an Ikea car park. At Poetry in Aldeburgh Ruth Padel will read alongside Rachel McCarthy as part of Passion and…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Ruth Padel
An Interview with Ruth Padel
A work which tries to be ‘political’ often fails to work as art. You have to make the poem as good as you can as a poem, as art, rather than bang on with its message.
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‘On Sizewell Beach’ by Blake Morrison and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Sizewell is a small fishing village just north of Aldeburgh, though perhaps best known as a site for nuclear power. The presence of the nuclear power station is felt in Blake Morrison’s ‘On Sizewell Beach’, a poem full of local detail, including mention of the unusually named (and allegedly haunted) Vulcan Arms pub. However, the occasion…
BenRogers
Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Blake Morrison
An Interview with Blake Morrison
“I have written two memoirs and my poems have become increasingly personal. So yes, I understand the torment.”
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‘Wireman’ by Mona Arshi and a new writing prompt by Ben Rogers
Starting by announcing the potentially idyllic locale of a beach in St Lucia, ‘Wireman’ (from Mona Arshi’s first collection Small Hands) reveals itself to be a surreal and unsettling poem. A seemingly innocuous seller/maker of wire-based objects casts a “long shadow” over the narrator who then becomes fixated on a distorted vision of the world…
BenRogers
Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Ian Duhig
An Interview with Ian Duhig
“I think it can be misleading to talk about musicality in poetry as that tends to mean a certain kind of musicality when in fact many exist, including those which seem distinctly unmusical to other musics.”
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‘Half the Story’ by Ian Duhig and a new writing prompt by Ben Rogers
Today’s poem begins by offering a tale about the celebrated writer Franz Kafka cheering up a little girl who has lost her doll in a park, producing a succession of letters for her from the absent doll. The second “half” of the poem then offers an alternative version of events, before trailing off with a…
BenRogers
‘Nomura Haikus’
Iris Goddess of rainbows blue indigo violet mood after rainfall Foxglove Southwark Cathedral bells tinkle in foxglove spires a candle is lit Aquilegia Set in the city columbine from the woodlands the alpine meadows Agapanthus Bridal Bouquet Lily of the Nile beribboned sapphire bloom floats along the aisle Achillea Millefolium Paprika…
CamelliaStafford
‘Instructions to the Lemon Grass Artist’ by Chrissy Williams and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Today’s poem charts the surreal and incredible adventures of some Lemon Grass voyaging into space. Additionally though, the poem in itself is in a kind of transit, being a set of “instructions” for an unseen artist to convert the words into visual form, supplemented by textual captions given in capital letters. At Poetry in Aldeburgh:…
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