Original Plus collections
No expense spared in bringing out Original Plus's one publication this year Alan Corkish's a-BIRTH-a-DAY, which was a-poem-a-day project which took course over 2004. Now finally out in hardback with illos by Pascale Gouverner.
ISBN 978-0-9955802-9-9
400 pages
£14.95
On Lipstick Beach by F.J.Williams
"Microwaves, the 'first fridge', Pepsi, gyms, cashpoints and bowls-players, On Lipstick Beach spills over with the stuff of everyday life. There's satire here but also a relish of the oddity of the commonplace. These fast-paced, witty poems are a real pleasure." Jeffrey Wainwright
"Art should disturb so says F.J. Williams (in the poem Jimmy the hit man) - and these poems do with their thought-provoking and challenging explorations. But they also delight, illuminate and record a world of closely detailed incidents, articles and people. The choice of techniques (rich imagery, exact diction, alliterative and assonantal sound effects) is always appropriate to the subject matter - serving the intellectual and emotional demands of the poems rather than for a self-aggrandising effect. These poems demand to be read, and re-read in order to savour the worlds that John Williams so skilfully creates. This is the work of rare imagination - bold, daring, enriching and essentially human." Roger Elkin
"Williams makes you feel he's held each word in his hand, considering its exact weight and energy...He finds and celebrates the small rebellions that keep human aspiration and hope alive" - Pauline Rowe
ISBN 978-0-9931186-5-4 £5.00 (price applies to UK only)
in:dispensable by Andy Hickmott
a collection of new poems in support of Ancoats Dispensary Trust
For over a century Ancoats Dispensary was the beating heart of Ancoats, its grade II listed Victorian splendour keeping safe the local people's memories: their joy at new births, relief at health restored, sadness of loved ones lost. Faced with the threat of its demolition, the community it had served rose up and organized a grass roots campaign to save it. Now with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Ancoats Dispensary Trust is working not only to restore the dispensary to its former splendour, but also to make it once again a vital cohesive force in the life of the community. The twenty poems in in:dispensable capture the essential hurt of an industrial heartland subjected to exploitation, neglect and plunder.
ISBN 978-0-9931186-3-0 £5.00 (price applies to UK only)
Us: who made History by Paul Lee
‘The remarkable work of a remarkable man, these poems will stop at nothing. They grapple tirelessly with delight and despair, joy and anguish, form and fragmentation. They are intelligent, fierce, fearless, and alive. Paul Lee died too soon – but what a legacy is here!’ Helena Nelson
'This is a posthumous collection, the final publication of Paul Lee, offering sixty nine poems and so offering clear economic value. But it offers values of other kinds, too: of variety, craft, dexterity and of emotional range. I'd never read Lee before, so the first poems came as something of a surprise - their deftness, their craft, his desire to experiment with form on one page or build a solidly conventional sonnet on the next. I was surprised I'd not come across him before. You would think a poet of this ability would be widely published...' Noel Williams: Antiphon (for the full review - http://antiphon.org.uk/index.php/interval-reviews-5/181-i5-review-1)
‘I first met Paul at Leicester Writers’ Club, where he would read out new poems and ask for feedback. I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe their qualities let alone offer criticism. But on each occasion he pulled back another layer and I learned a little more. He was a subtle teacher and generous. For a long time I didn’t realise that was the process we were engaged in. /It was after one of our last meetings together that I caught a glimpse of how many layers remained to be uncovered. We were walking out of the Adult Education College and I expressed my admiration for a particularly fine sonnet he had just read out. I wanted to know how he achieved the rhyme and metre without it seeming forced. "Once you’ve written fifty they start to come more easily," he said. "That one came to me fully formed."’ Rod Duncan
ISBN 978-0-9570197-4-4 £8.00
Grahaeme Barrasford Young: Routes of Uncertainty
"I admire the marriage of childhood memory and philosophical probing in Routes of Uncertainty. This strikingly independent poetry, moulded by the Scottish Highlands, has great range. It uncovers a wide world of location and dislocation, placement and displacement, and explores the edge of things, both human and natural, beyond 'the sludge of struggle' and what might have been. It mediates a borderline between historical-geological division, between the lost and the found, and between silence and not knowing." David Caddy
"Using metaphors from geology and landscape GBY explores the depths of humanity. His language is terse and sinewy, shot through with moments of harsh beauty they show a passionate relationship with the land." John Matthews
"These are serious poems by a serious poet about serious issues and, while some at times tend towards the inaccessible, most are very much worth reading. They are characterised by a real craft - Routs of Uncertainty makes use of a choppy syntax hard to write but perfectly expressive of the press of important but unknowable things crowding in. Similarly barbury where the rhythm of the words on the page describing the walk seem themselves expelled by the rapid breathing of a walker climbing. ... This is an excellent collection which I can highly recommend." Patrick Lodge: Carillon #39
ISBN 978-0-9570197-5-1 £8.00
Paul Lee: The Light Forecast
"These poems are like water. They splash from risk to risk, exuberant, graceful, wayward, irrepressible. Head-over-heels in love with words, Lee draws vitality from the source. He can make a sparkling delight of almost nothing—or plummet as deep as it goes…." Helena Nelson
To view pages from this collection click here
£8.00
(price for UK only)
For more details go to http://teamleepoetry.wordpress.com
Emma Lee : Yellow Torchlight and the Blues
"Employing strong visual pictures ... many of Lee's poems stick in the mind's eye long after the book has been closed. ... Lee's poems are sharp, spare, and economic, without missing out on the important details." Deborah Tyler-Bennett
"...Enigmatic, [these poems] represent the world we live in and aspects of it we may not be aware of.... They are uncomfortable; they articulate the world of rejection, of cold detachment. Often their starkness is disturbing... These are poems that do not ask you to come and enjoy them but, rather, to come prepared." Huw Watkins
"The attractive-destructive glitter of the music business illumines many of these poems. They are narratives of the modern world -- allusive, razor-edged and darkly perceptive." Helena Nelson
To view pages from this collection click here
£7.00
(price for UK only)
For more details go to http://teamleepoetry.wordpress.com or contact the author for a signed copy - teamlee@ntlworld.com
Cuatro Poetas [translations by Albert Rowe of poems by Ferderico Garciá Lorca, Antonio Machado, Pablo Neruda & Jorge Guillén]
To view pages from this collection - click here
£14.00
selected poems: Idris Caffrey
"... craftsmanship, the ingenuity, sensitivity and the depth makes reading his work a profound experience." Mike Bannister: Links
Don Ammons: Andetsteds
'...an easy-to-read 71 pages of poems, well-turned out-in-the-open simple but skilled memories... short poems occasionally like small jewels... all combine in smooth sequence to make this an attractive collection.' Eric Ratcliffe: NHI Review
£6.00
(price for UK only)
Albert Rowe: Carmen at the Fountain
"Warm and wise, acutely observed and accessible, as inclusive as they are intelligent, Albert Rowe's poems are a 'must' for all poetry lovers..." Frank Ruhrmund: The St. Ives Times & Echo
To view pages from this collection click here
£7.00
Paul Davidson: UNDERLAND
".... Davidson the poet, spellmaker, cartographer." Roselle Angwin
To view pages from this collection click here
£7.00
Siobhan Logan : Firebridge to Skyshore
Firebridge to Skyshore: A Northern Lights Journey: Siobhan Logan
'....weaving science, folk myth and daily lives under the Northern Lights, Firebridge to Skyshore builds a language out of colour, taking us beyond the glittering cold of the landscapes into their heart.’ D.A. Prince
contact the author - siobhan.logan1@ntlworld.com - for a signed copy . More details available on Siobhan's website - www.siobhanlogan.co.uk
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R G Bishop - 2 collections
I'll Try To Be Good: R G Bishop
"...never wastes a word. His imagery is rich but uncluttered, his management of rhyme and rhythm subtle. He can work within the poetic tradition yet mint new coinage in today's world of chemotherapy and holes in the Ozone layer. Above all else he readily tackles the great themes of love, God and death with the ambiguity they deserve..." Gloria B Yates
To view pages from this collection click here
R G Bishop: Other Moments II "There is a pared-down spareness and succinctness to R G Bishop's poems that is most attractive." Harry Chambers: Peterloo Poets
Richard Wonnacott: Eeeny, Minnie, Molly
'Admirably experimental...' The Frogmore Papers
'Thoroughly recommended.' Terrible Work
To view pages from this book click here
£6.00
Jail Time: Brian Daldorph
"What these poems do provide is something akin to dispatches from a nearby place we are far too conditioned to see as a foreign country. If we pay attention to Brian’s poems we may discover the inhabitants of that place are not so alien as we imagined. The distance is really not that great." Mike Caron, Programs Supervisor, Douglas County Jail
contact the author for a signed copy - briandal@ku.edu
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A Moment of Attention: Chris Hardy £8.00
"Chris Hardy's poetry is, by turns, restrained and exuberant, suggesting a delight in the power of words that is quite charming. In this collection he roams far and wide, but the unifying quality of the work is the unflinching eye with which he regards his subjects."Jeremy Page
Copies available now only from the author - chrishardy303@hotmail.com
For more details go to http://www.myspace.com/mrchrishardy or to www.bigroad.net
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Isn't Sex Noisy: songs & poems by Colin Shaddick
"... part of an eccentric slice of the British way of life" BBC Radio 4
For more details go to www.inclusifolk.com or contact the author for a signed copy - colin.shaddick@btinternet.com Recommended by The Eccentric Club
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Chrissy Banks: Days of Fire and Flood £8.95
'... can touch a nerve without resorting to verbosity or pretence.' Stuart Paterson: Spectrum
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James Turner: Forgeries
"A gentler tone than Larkin, but with his and Hardy's skill in rhyme and form. These poems have you coming back for more." Anne Born
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Helen Buckingham : water on the moon
"Helen Buckingham is one of those great haiku/senryu writers whose work invites us to revisit it again and again. I highly recommend Water on the Moon; it should be in every poet's library." - Pamela A. Babusci
"Like the best wordsmiths, Helen Buckingham possesses what seems to be a wholly natural talent for translating the modern world and contemporary living, often in their minutest detail into exquisite poetry. It is a faculty that is, perhaps, more of an asset to a writer of haiku and its related forms than any other poet or artist - the finest haiku relies on its abilty to appear as simple as steam rising from a cup of coffee. What's most striking about Helen Buckingham's poetry is its immediacy and proximity - each breath of poetry seems to exist within the moment of its making." -Liam Wilkinson
ISBN 978-0-9562433-5-5
the author, Helen Buckingham - hb007e6063@blueyonder.co.uk - now has the only copies available.
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Paul Sutton: Broadsheet Asphyxia
"Paul Sutton's Broadsheet Asphyxia is the random jottings taken down from stream of consciousness by a latter-day Rimbaud. In more contemporary British terms, Sutton is one of poetry's recusants...." William Oxley: Orbis 128
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Sandra Tappenden: Bags of Mostly Water
'There is a range here, in these poems, which let you get inside them quickly and then keephold of you. Nothing bores, little repeats, invention rolls. Great stuff.' Peter Finch