One week to go. Free those diaries for an evening of lyricism with three versatile and talented poets as they read from their recent publications.

York Library Marriott Room, Thursday 17 October, 6.15 – 7.45pm. Free entry.

Calder Valley Poetry presents three recently published poets reading from their pamphlets.

John Foggin’s Dark Watchers: ‘Each poem in this                                                                       collection is gift-wrapped in a rare richness of                                                                                     language … John Foggin is a poet at the top of his                                                                                  game and this is a collection that will stay with you                                                                                    long after the final note has been played.’ (Tom Weir)

The poems in Steve Nash’s Myth Gatherers are ‘desire

paths, inviting us to find our own way through the

rich, surreal, tender landscape he invokes, a world

where silences are coloured in pencil, valleys brim

with ‘intoxicating uncertainty’ and darkness is a

benediction.’ (Helen Mort)

Launch of Body, Remember (Cavafy Translations) by Ian Parks.

Doncaster Brewery and Tap (7 Young Street, Doncaster, DN1 3EL).

Thursday 26th September, 7.30pm.

‘The best versions of these poems I’ve ever read.’                                                                                       Louis de Bernieres

‘This, you feel, is exactly what these poems would sound like if you read them in English.’     Times Literary Supplement

‘Cavafy’s undoubted lyric gift finds full expression in these exquisite versions.’                          Katrina Papazoglakis

Only three days to go until this

by 

is launched at Seven Artspace, 31(a) Harrogate Road, Chapel Allerton, Leeds, LS7 3PD. That’s Wednesday 22nd May, at 7.30pm. Heart Murmur, poems by Emma Storr.

Guest readers Carole Bromley and John Foggin.

Emma Storr will read poems from her newly-published pamphlet Heart Murmur, published by Calder Valley Poetry, a collection of 27 poems with a medical theme, based on Emma’s experience as a doctor, patient and human being. They are varied in form and subject, humour and gravity.

Also reading a selection of poems are well-known poets, John Foggin and Carole Bromley.

EMMA STORR

“Emma Storr draws on her scientific knowledge and medical experience in deft and lyrical ways to create different voices and styles. In her calm objectivity, in her honesty and accuracy of perception, she teaches us all that we should listen better. ” John Foggin.

“Heart Murmur is written from a place of humanity and wisdom. In poems which explore our fragile bodies and selves with forensic kindness, Emma Storr shares her medical and life experience with warmth and humour in extraordinary pieces that stay in one’s mind long after reading. A stunning poetic debut.” James Nash.

JOHN FOGGIN

John Foggin lives in West Yorkshire. He is resident blogger for Write Out Loud. He was a winner of the 2016 Poetry Business International Pamphlet Competition . His work has appeared in numerous journals, and anthologies including The Forward Book of Poetry [2015, 2018]. His latest pamphlet was Advice to a traveller (Indigo Dreams 2018), and a new one, Dark Watchers, will be published in May 2019 by Calder Valley Poetry.

CAROLE BROMLEY

Carole Bromley lives in York where she is the stanza rep and runs poetry surgeries. Winner of many prizes, including the Bridport, she has three collections with Smith/Doorstop, most recently a children’s collection, Blast Off! Carole is currently working on a pamphlet about her recent experience of brain surgery and also on a second children’s book. Her website is www.carolebromleypoetry.co.uk

Ian Parks didn’t win the Michael Marks Pamphlet Award a week ago, but to be one of the shortlisted five from the original 160 is testimony to the quality of If Possible (Cavafy Translations). There was a moment when we thought the prize was ours. Sasha Dugdale, the chief judge, said they had compared Ian’s translations favourably with others, which presumably included Auden. Her praise for the poems was warm and generous.

John Foggin, in this week’s edition of The Great Fogginzo’s Cobweb, writes about the Ian Parks of that great collection, Citizens, published by Smokestack Books. Follow this link:

https://johnfogginpoetry.com/2018/12/17/the-best-of-2018-february-ian-parks-and-matthew-stewart/

Last year’s Michael Marks winner Charlotte Wetton (I Refuse to Turn into a Hatstand – Calder Valley Poetry; copies still available on the Bookshop page) was at the Awards Dinner at The British Library, reporting on her writing residency in Greece, which is part of the prize, and reading a poem, The Cave-Precipice of Andritsa, which came out of that residency.

The photograph below shows Ian, Charlotte, Mick Jenkinson and Steve Ely sharing a post-award drink in O’Neill’s on Euston Road, opposite the library. Ian, Charlotte and Steve are all published by Calder Valley Poetry; Mick is on the list for 2019. (Steve was there because the illustrations which accompany his 2018 collection Zi-Zi Taah Taah Taah, about the willow tit, won the illustrator’s prize for Ruth from Sheffield. (Can’t remember her surname, and she is credited only as PR in the pamphlet, which is available from Wild West Press.)

Ian Parks’s If Possible (Cavafy Translations), published by Calder Valley Poetry, has been shortlisted for the 2018 Michael Marks Pamphlet Award. The prize (won last year by Charlotte Wetton’s I Refuse to Turn into a Hatstand, also published by CVP) is £5,000 plus a writing residency in Greece next summer.

The winner will be announced at an Awards Dinner at The British Library on Tuesday, 11th December. Further details, including the other shortlisted poets, can be found on https://wordsworth.org.uk/michael-marks-awards-shortlist/

That’s Thursday 1st November. Next Thursday. Guest appearance of Mexborough Minibusload.

Two days to go. Thursday 25th October, 7.30 p.m., The Albert Hotel, Huddersfield. Guest readers Stephanie Bowgett and Alison Lock.

The launch of Mark Hinchliffe’s new collection, Miss Gale’s Garden, will take place at The Albert Hotel, Victoria Lane, Huddersfield, HD1 2QF, at 7.30 p,m, on Thursday 25th October.

‘Your poems are very moving and pure, your point blank economy of words and your sense of phrasing is everywhere.’                        Ted Hughes

Guest readers Stephanie Bowgett and Alison Lock.