Mulfran Miniatures, an illustrated pamphlet series

About Mulfran Miniatures

A series of small-format pamphlets (following on from the Vennel Press Brief Pleasures series) Mulfran Miniatures will include taster selections by Mulfran poets, by poets who have not yet published a full collection, and by already well-known poets, alongside artists whose images inspired or respond to the poems. Each pamphlet is in A6 format, 16 pages, price £4 for Miniatures 1-7, £6 for Miniatures 8-10.

Mulfran Miniatures reviewed on Ellipsis Poetry

A review by Kate Noakes of Mulfran Miniatures includes considerations of each of the first four pamplets in the series, as well as commenting on the series as a whole: "Mulfran Press, from Cardiff, in addition to publishing some fine individual volumes of verse (see the forthcoming review of Lesley Saunders’ No Doves in the first print edition of Ellipsis), has produced a series of miniatures. These are small groups of poems or sequences and each pocket-sized book is beautifully illustrated by different artists."
Kate Noakes, Small Is Beautiful, Ellipsis Poetry

Mulfran Miniatures — 1
The Sychbant by Roy Morgans
with illustrations by Marion KV Kenning
ISBN 987-1-907327-04-9

Roy Morgans is a caver and keen explorer of the limestone hills in South Wales. In The Sychbant, he shares with us one of these explorations — through the course of a day, along the course of the Sychbant — in a series of detailed meditations on the landscape and on movement through the risks of a pathless journey to a certain destination.

Marion Kenning (photographer, digital artist and illustrator) particularly enjoys collaborating with performers, musicians and authors. Her sensitivity towards people's creative works is clearly demonstrated in her illustrations for The Sychbant.

Mulfran Miniatures — 2
Work & Food by Peter Daniels
with illustrations by Moira Coupe
ISBN 987-1-907327-05-6

Peter Daniels, winner of the first prize in the TLS 2010 poetry competition and the 2008 Arvon Competition, is now working on new poems and on translations. Work & Food is a mini-retrospective focused on those two essentials: Peter lives and eats in Stoke Newington, and works as a freelance editor.

Moira Coupe also lives and works in Stoke Newington. She took a postgraduate degree in printmaking in 1990, and has exhibited widely, including in Japan. In 1991 Moira was diagnosed with MS, and to accomodate the fluctuating nature of MS she now works with a greater variety of materials. The images in this book are ink drawings.

Mulfran Miniatures — 3
The Hard Man by Malcolm Lewis
with two drawings by Ceri Richards
ISBN 987-1-907327-06-3

Malcolm Lewis from Caerffili is a freelance editor, writer and arts journalist with a music column in Planet: The Welsh Internationalist and is film critic for New Internationalist. Though now living in London, he is often to be found in South Wales. Ceri Richards (1903-71) is recognised as 'the most internationally reknowned Welsh painter' of the post-war period. His superb draughtsmanship is evident in these drawings of his father, which perfectly complement this tough, moving sequence of poems.

Mulfran Miniatures — 4
My Shinji Noon by Maureen Jivani
with illustrations by Jill Schoenmann
ISBN 987-1-907327-07-0

Maureen Jivani’s first collection, Insensible Heart, from which this sequence is drawn, was publishedby Mulfran Press in 2009. Her poems have appeared in the UK, New Zealand and Australia online and in magazines including Frogmore Papers, The Glasgow Review, Magma, nthposition, Orbis, The Rialto, Seam, Smiths Knoll, and The Wolf.

Jill Schoenmann, born in Penarth South Wales where she has lived for most of her life, studied fashion design at Cardiff College of Art. Jill had her own fashion business for many years, her love of drawing and painting always influencing that work. Now, her earlier design background finds a way into her paintings and illustrations. Her collages of drawing and textiles respond to Maureen's eastern-flavoured tale.

Mulfran Miniatures — 5
Some Languages Are Hard To Dream In by Lesley Saunders
with images by Christopher Hedley-Dent
ISBN 987-1-907327-09-4

Lesley Saunders’ collection, No Doves, from which this sequence is drawn, was published spring 2010. She is a much-published poet who was awarded joint first prize in the Manchester poetry Prize 2008, and collaborated with the artist Geoff Carr on Her Leafy Eye from Two Rivers Press (2009). More about her publications can be found on Lesley's own website.

Christopher Hedley-Dent is a painter and print-maker (and poet) who has had major exhibitions and is collected in England, Wales, France and America. He responded to Lesley's poem with visual improvisation inspired by some of the key images and the mood of the piece, adopting a kind of surrealist collage approach in their composition. Christopher's web site has more information about his working practices and offers artist's prints of these vinyl cut images.

Mulfran Press home page

Mulfran Miniatures — 6
Eight Pegs by Tony Curtis
with drawings by Rozanne Hawksley
ISBN 987-1-907327-11-7

Tony Curtis is Emeritus Professor of Poetry at the University of Glamorgan where he established Creative Writing in the 1980s. He has published nine collections of poetry and has written and edited over thirty books, including anthologies and art commentary. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Welsh Academy of Writers. He serves on the executive of the Contemporary Art Society of Wales. Tony lives in Barry, South Wales. His primary publisher is Seren. Find out about his publications and activities on his web site.

Rozanne Hawksley is one of Wales’ most distinguished senior artists. Trained at the Royal College, she taught at various colleges, including Goldsmith’s and in the USA, whilst freelancing. She works mainly in the area of Art/Textiles, the scale varying from the intimate to installation pieces. Her childhood in naval Portsmouth provided just one of the influences for an art which often deals with war and loss. Her work is in many major collections including the Imperial War Museum and the National Museum of Wales. Information and pictures of her works are available on the Rozanne Hawksley website.

Mulfran Miniatures — 7
Just Like That by Crystal Jeans
with illustrations by Emrys Williams
ISBN 987-1-907327-12-4

Crystal Jeans is a young writer from Wales, living and working in Cardiff. Her work in a care home provided inspiration for some of the extraordinary and clear-eyed poems in Just Like That. She is completing the Creative Writing Masters at the University of Glamorgan and is currently writing a novel.
This is an engaging and, at times, startlingly original poetry voice. Crystal’s insights are uncompromising, while her confessional honesty is compelling. Tony Curtis.

Emrys Williams is a visual artist who works in the areas of painting, drawing and printmaking as well as collaboration in dance, opera and design. Born in Liverpool in 1958, he moved with his family to Colwyn Bay on the North Wales coast in 1969. Emrys has exhibited in Britain, France and Germany and has work in a number of public collections including the National Museum of Wales (Cardiff), the Arts Council of England and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. You can see more of his work on his website.

Mulfran Miniatures — 8
Ten Poems by Adnan Al-Sayegh
with illustrations by Kate Hazell
ISBN 987-1-907327-27-8

Adnan Al-Sayegh is an Iraqi poet who is living in exile in London. He has won several international awards. Translations of his poetry onto English include Biography of an Exile (Arc, 2016) and two shared Mulfran pamphlets with Jenny Lewis in English and Arabic. An excerpt from his 500-page epic poem Uruk's Anthem, one of his published Arabic-language books, forms part of one of the latter. His website is adnanalsayegh.com .

Translation from Arabic by Jenny Lewis and Alaa Juma

Kate Hazell studied Illustration at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating with a First Class Degree. She has received high profile commissions that range from magazine editorials and books to large scale wall murals. Currently based in London, she predominantly works in pen and ink to create lively and engaging illustrations. Her website is www.katehazell.com.

Mulfran Miniatures — 9
The Flood
Extract from Gilgamesh Retold by Jenny Lewis
with woodcuts by Frances Kiernan
ISBN 987-1-907327-07-0

Jenny Lewis trained as a painter at the Ruskin School of Art before reading English at Oxford University. Her recent work includes Taking Mesopotamia (Oxford Poets/ Carcanet, 2014) and two chapbooks in English and Arabic with the IraqipoetAdnanal-Sayegh–Now as Then: Mesopotamia-Iraq and Singing for Inanna (Mulfran Press 2013/14). Jenny is currently working on Gilgamesh Retold for a PhD at Goldsmiths. She teaches poetry at Oxford University.

Artist printmaker Frances Kiernan first trained as a typographer and designer at Ealing School of Art before gaining an MA in Fine Art from University of the Arts London. Recent exhibitions include Tracing Time, Placing Marks at the Barbican Library and50YearsofArtistsPrints with the Printmakers Council at London’s Bankside Gallery. Her work is held in collections at Kensington Palace, the V&A Museum, Prints for Peace in Monterrey NL México and the Sanskriti Foundation in New Delhi.

Mulfran Miniatures — 10
[Ten Poems rev ed, parallel text: Russian with Arabic and English] by Adnan Al-Sayegh
Russian translation by Natalya Dubrovina
with illustrations by Kate Hazell
ISBN 987-1-907327-30-8

Natalya Dubrovina was born and lives in the Urals in the city of Perm, Russia. She graduated from Perm State University in Foreign Languages and Literature (English and French). She works as an English tutor and translator and, before Ten Poems, has translated from English to Russian the works of authors such as the novelist Linda Proud and the poet Jenny Lewis.