Recent News...

A brief hiatus, in which many things stack up in our inboxes. We've been a bit lazy with the hereness of here, and I've a right mind to increase our reading time for submissions. Mostly I blame the other Editor for this, but then again, I'm the other Editor too, from a certain perspective.

- The Shearsman 2010 Reading Series continues on Tuesday, 2 February at 7:30 pm, featuring Sarah Law & Steve Spence. The venue is Swedenborg Hall, Swedenborg House, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH. Admission is free.

Books launched:
Sarah Law (biog)
Steve Spence (biog)

Subsequent readings -- at the same venue -- will take place as follows:
- 10 March: launch of the anthology Infinite Difference: Other Poetries from UK Women Poets, edited by Carrie Etter, with short readings from fifteen of the poets featured in the book; this event will be hosted by the editor
- 20 April: Jaime Robles and Lars Amund Vaage;
- 4 May: Camille Martin & Alasdair Paterson;
- 1 June: readers tbc
- An additional reading is scheduled for 2 March, 7:30pm, at Westminster Kingsway College, Victoria, at which the Mexican poet Elsa Cross will read from her recent Shearsman Selected Poems with at least two of her translators; further venue and access details in due course.
- We expect to add a further date in late May to feature Michael Heller and Robert Vas Dias; date to be confirmed.

- Shearsman have also just republished Elisabeth Bletsoe's early work. w00t! Link there is to Shearsman's rejuvenated blog, which has been quite lively of late. (No link there to the actual publisher page for Pharmacopoeia, which is here. Tony's sales must be absolutely soaring for him to have missed that trick.)

- Carrie Etter announces the Bath Spa Reading Series 2010: "The next cycle of this highly successful series will begin on Thursday February 11 2010 at the Duncan Room, Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, 16-18 Queen Square, Bath, 7.30 for 8.pm. Tickets at the door: £7.00, £5.00 concessions."
- Thursday February 11: Alan Brownjohn
- Wednesday March 3: Alan Jenkins and Paul Batchelor
- Thursday April 22: Carol Watts
- Thursday May 13: Jane Draycott
- Thursday June 10: David Morley

- A reminder of the Poetry Bites event tomorrow evening. Hosted by Jacqui Rowe, tomorrow features Michael McKimm: Michael McKimm was born in Belfast in 1983 and grew up near the Giant’s Causeway. He graduated from the Warwick Writing Programme in 2004 and won an Eric Gregory Award in 2007. [Lots of magazine publications and commissions, clipped - go read his website.] Still This Need, his first full-length collection, was published by Heaventree in 2009. Venue: The Kitchen Garden Café, 17 York Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham B14 7SA. 7.30pm, Tuesday 26th January. (Food available from 6.30pm). Poetry Bites includes floor spots where you can share your own poetry with an appreciative audience. Please arrive early to book a spot.£5 (£4) To reserve a place email Jacqui Rowe or pay at the door.

- Mario Petrucci announces his forthcoming new collection from Enitharmon, i-tulips. I've read and heard him read a few of these and they're rather lovely, a kind of 21st Century haiku sequencing, with an accessible ecopoetic threading. (Which is not to imply they're totally pop. I ought to hold my tongue until I've seen the book, really, but when did that ever stop me?)

- Pomegranate magazine has had a snazzy makeover, courtesy of arts funding. Now it's MORE than just a magazine! It's a NETWORK! Rather trendy too, with blog feeds, tweet feeds, multimedia... Jeez, they're making me feel old...

- Sue Hubbard's Campaign to Restore the Poem to Waterloo Underpass continues on Facebook. She's looking for ideas, support, etc. While I loved it when I was in London (though lingering in any underpass for the length of time it takes to digest a poem like that has never made me feel comfortable) now I'm out of London I'm feeling a little bit heartless about it. That said, it was a wonderful poem and certainly brightened up an otherwise drab part of London. And the bastardly response of London's failing capitalist bureaucracies are just shameless. You can read the poem here, but it's definitely more effective in situ.

- Skysill Press announce a new publication on their blog: Jess Mynes' Sky Brightly Picked, a title I like the sound of. It's a lovely cover. Glad to see yet more recession-resisting new poetry flying out into the world.

- And finally, the Editors recently managed to catch the pagan euphoria of Baroness at the Hare and Hound. I still can't decide if I like the Red Album more than the Blue Album. The songs they played off the former certainly kicked me to pieces far more than the latter, but that might just have been over-familiarity.