Friday, September 30, 2011

featured e-zine: message in a bottle





Online magazine, Message in a Bottle, is run by poet Fiona Sinclair. She says:

Message in a Bottle is an on line poetry magazine that publishes four times a year. Its aim is to present poems that are very well crafted with an emphasis on a skilful use of language and whose subject matter is unusual even quirky.

Over the past three years the magazine has been fortunate enough to attract works from established poets from all over the world. We have also published first poems from young writers such as iDrew who have a fresh and original voice. Indeed we aim every issue to introduce at least one new poet.

To submit to the magazine please send poems in the main body of an email. Every submission is acknowledged regardless of acceptance.

 
 

Monday, September 26, 2011

poetry snapshots: oz hardwick



Good Morning America




They are showing CCTV

of a woman who binges in her sleep, peanut butter

straight from the tub – and we're talking a large tub –

when we cut to ads for Botox, anti-depressants,

America's power-packed super pill, Tom Cruise

live in the studio and fifty percent of pets

are overweight and two to three percent of Americans

will experience sleep violence at some time in their lives.



Good morning America, this could be the smallest woman

ever to have a baby, with cameras in the operating theater,

but first our lovable losers in Family Feuds,

forty seven percent say 'wrong' and the mad auntie

gets the laughs, loses points, goes home

a winner and we cut to ads. I leave for breakfast

on disposable plates amongst soldiers reading the news,

camouflaged, silent, trying not to think of percentages.








From The Illuminated Dreamer (Oversteps, 2010)





Oz Hardwick is a York-based writer, photographer and musician. He has published three well-received poetry collections, most recently The Illuminated Dreamer (Oversteps, 2010), as well as many individual poems, stories and articles in journals, magazines and anthologies. He has read his work in the UK, Europe and US, as well as on radio and television. As Paul Hardwick, Oz is Professor of English at Leeds Trinity University College, where he is Programme Leader for English and Writing and also teaches medieval literature. He has published widely on literature and art history, and his latest book is English Medieval Misericords: The Margins of Meaning (Boydell, 2011).


'The more one reads Hardwick’s poems the more they have to say… the nearer one approaches, the more they open up, the warmer the embrace’ – The Black Mountain Review.




Monday, September 19, 2011

poetry snapshots: miles cain





         

The Bricklayer’s Lament



The mixer span on its own orbit

the day after she left. He laid

cement on the trowel, detesting

the horizon as the wall crept up,



killing chances of junk mail

and evangelists. Anger

snapped in his wrists

as he spread the sighing glue,



inventing the wall, tall as pain.

It shrank the world, obscuring

other lives with twenty two lines

of perfect red rectangles that said no.



He retreated, felt the border’s shadow

loom against his back. The night was cool,

the rooms darker than before

as the radio hummed about hearts.




By afternoon he was itching at the quiet,

wanted a paper, a pint of milk,

chat containing eyes. Sighing, he grabbed

the hammer. A section of wall surrendered.



He stared at four bricks, saw

how they’d been tattooed from outside

with a chalky heart and arrow.

He left the house and looked for skies.








Miles Cain is a York-based writer, musician and storyteller. He's organised York Literature Festival, written for the BBC and won prizes for his poems. A debut collection, The Border, is about to be published by Scarborough publisher Valley Press. 'I love Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Philip Larkin and Matthew Sweeney,' says Miles, whose work has appeared in Aesthetica, Beautiful Scruffiness, Current Accounts, Dreamcatcher,
Frogmore Papers, Obsessed With Pipework, Orbis, South Bank Poetry and more. 'The Border started out as something more cheeky humorous,' he says, 'but eventually became a set of poems that were a little darker. I've worked as a youth worker and writer in residence in a prison, and there's a lot of urban paranoia in the collection.' The Border is an unsettling but commanding read. Often the poems tell miniature stories and have surreal touches as Miles muses on technology, relationships and the power of music. Find out more at Miles's website and visit Valley Press to order a copy of the book.


Miles will be reading poems from The Border and playing a selection of songs at the following gigs in Autumn 2011:






September 22nd – Scarborough Library : Valley Press evening, starts at 6p.m.

October 1st – Book launch at City Screen, York, 8pm. £7, includes copy of The Border
October 5th - Fresh Ink, Upstairs at Hartley's, Newland Avenue, Hull starts at 7.30pm

Wednesday 12th - Leeds Trinity University College

Thursday October 13th – Thursday Night Live, Hull starts at 7.30 pm

Thursday October 27th – Brighouse Library, Readers' and Writers' Festival, Calderdale, starts at 7.30p.m

Friday October 28th - Sentinel Literature Festival, London

Sat 29th October - Pocktoberfest, Pocklington Arts Centre
Tuesday November 8th - Grafton Acoustic, Newland Avenue, Hull from 8p.m

Thursday November 17th - Simply Books, Pocklington at 7.30 p.m. Tickets £8 includes copy of the book




Sunday, September 11, 2011

poetry snapshots: chris kinsey





FLINT


(With a line

by Wallace Stevens.)



“And nothing need be explained,”

said the stone,

sea-spittle drying.



Not knapped,

nor chipped

to blade or arrowhead.



Not struck for sparks

nor saved for slingshot,

but fingered



out of a shingle bed

and cradled in a palm,

on a morning where gulls,



whiter than Sizewell’s vanishing globe,

nestle into footprints

the crunch has walked from.












Since winning an Arts Council of Wales bursary for new writing in 2000, Chris Kinsey has been a freelance writer, tutor, and rescuer of greyhounds. Her previous books are Kung Fu Lullabies and Cure for a crooked smile, both published by Ragged Raven Press. Swarf, published by Smokestack Books, will be launched on 15th September at the Oriel Davis Gallery.
Her stage play, Feathering the Dark, was shown at Aberystwyth Arts Centre and her short play, I and I, at Venue Cymru. She writes a regular Nature Diary for Cambria and occasionally for Natur Cymru. Chris has read at the Ledbury and Hay festivals, and her work has been featured on BBC Radio 4 and Radio Wales. She is currently Writer-in-residence at Oriel Davies Gallery.






York Literature Festival HUB 2018 event, Tuesday, 20th March

I'm looking forward to my first event for absolutely ages - at the York Literature Festival HUB. Many thanks to YLF and Valley...