We have read and we are reading still …
Examples of the kinds of poetry that
interest the Mulfran Press publishers
1. The books — and the poets — published by Vennel Press in the final decade of the 20th century.
Vennel Press poets included the Informationists W. N. Herbert, David Kinloch, and Peter McCarey, as well as Richard Price. Price, along with Leona Medlin initially started Vennel Press to publish Donny O'Rourke's first collection, Second Cities. In addition, Vennel published Peter Daniels, Raymond Friel, Chris Hedley-Dent, Elizabeth James, Duncan McGibbon, Kim Morrissey, Peter Snowdon, Gael Turnbull, and Hamish Whyte.
2. Edwin Morgan, for his amazing breadth of range as well as for the grace, beauty, humour and social edge that variously characterise his poems. Good place to start: Themes on a Variation, a collection which is out of print, but included in full in his Collected Poems.
Also, some of the perhaps more widely recognised giants of 20th century poetry writing, including Marianne Moore, Edwin Muir, R M Rilke, Wallace Stevens, Ted Hughes, ...
3. Some other, mostly newer, voices such as Tony Curtis, CL Dallat, Jane Draycott, Hugh Epstein, Peter Finch, Meirion Jordan, Eva Saltzman, Lesley Saunders, Sudeep Sen, Richard Wright, and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch.
Poems by these writers can be found in anthologies, literary journals and magazines such as Atlas, Gairfish*, The Honest Ulsterman, Magma, Manifest, New Welsh Review, Oxford Poetry, Poetry London, Rialto, Smith’s Knoll, Southfields, Sunk Island Review, Verse, and The Wolf, as well as from presses such as Aark Arts, Blackstaff, Carcanet, Two Rivers, Painted,Spoken, Peepal Tree, and Seren.
*Magazines and presses without links may no longer be active, or no longer active in the UK. It is still worth your time looking out back issues in libraries including at the Poetry Library Southbank Centre or on its magazine archive online service poetrymagazines.org.
Recommended reading
Selected Poems — Nikolay Zabolotsky, translated from the Russion, edited by Daniel Weissbort (Carcanet, 1999)
Angel Exhaust 20: You just rang Anne Widecombe? — editors Charles Bainbridge, Andrew Duncan (Spring, 2009)
Creatures of the Intertidal Zone — Susan Richardson (Cinnamon, 2007)
The Reality Street Book of Sonnets — edited by Jeff Hilson (Reality Street Editions, 2008) "With 84 contributors, this anthology explores the myriad ways poets have stretched, deconstructed and re-composed the sonnet."
Insensible Heart — Maureen Jivani (Mulfran, 2009)
The Syllabary — Peter McCarey
[The Devil in the Driving Mirror (Vennel, 1995) may still be available from the author, who is contributing proceeds to charity.]
Ashes of a Valleys Childhood — Lynda Nash (Mulfran, 2009)
Postmarked India: New and Selected Poems — Sudeep Sen (Harper Collins, 1997);
or Rain (Gallerie, Mapin, Grantha, 2005)
The Year of not Dancing C.L. Dallat (Blackstaff, 2009)
I Spy Pinhole Eye poems Philip Gross, photographs Simon Denison (Cinnamon, 2009)
The Consolations Duncan McGibbon (Mulfran, 2009)
Long-Haul Travellers Sheenagh Pugh (Seren, 2008)
Women's Work: Modern Women Poets writing in English edited by Eva Salzman and Amy Wack (Seren, 2008)
Selected Later Poems Peter Finch (Seren, 2007)
Poems for Men Who Dream of Lolita Kim Morrissey (Coteau, 1992)
Lucky Day Richard Price (Carcanet, 2005)
Skirrid Hill Owen Sheers (Seren, 2005)
Not in these shoes Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch (Picador, 2008)
Crossing Over by Tony Curtis (Seren, 2007)
Over by Jane Draycott (Carcanet, 2009)
Moonrise by Merion Jordon (Seren, 2009)
Her Leafy Eye by Lesley Saunders (Two Rivers, 2009)
Collected Later Poems by R. S. Thomas (Bloodaxe, 2004)