PN Review Summer Launch at Castlefield Gallery by Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor, creativetourist.com

PN Review Summer Launch at Castlefield Gallery, Castlefield, 24 July 2019, free entry – Find Out More

It was mooted as a bi-annual affair, and here we are popping the third launch of revered poetry and criticism magazine PN Reviewinto our diaries. The latest event – held against the backdrop of Castlefield Gallery’s Everything I Have Is Yours exhibition – gives you the chance to get hold of the July-August 2019 issue; number 248 of the long-running publication.

Having started life as Poetry Nation back in 1973, the tome is still going strong under the editorship of Michael Schmidt (also the founder and editorial and managing director of Manchester-based poetry publishing house Carcanet Press), appearing bi-monthly brimming with news, articles, interviews, features, translations, reviews and letters, and, of course poems.

Last year’s PN Review launch saw the performance of newly commissioned Yorkshire Sculpture Park-inspired pieces by the nation’s new Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. This time, the summer launch will feature readings from recent PN Review contributors Joe Carrick-Varty, Andy Croft, Jennifer Edgecombe, Lisa Kelly, Stav Poleg and John Wilkinson.

Last year’s PN Review launch saw the performance of newly commissioned Yorkshire Sculpture Park-inspired pieces by the nation’s new Poet Laureate Simon Armitage.

Joe Carrick-Varty won the 2018 New Poets Prize and his debut pamphlet Somewhere Far was published by The Poetry Business in June. Andy Croft has written and edited many books, and his own collections of poetry include Letters to Randall Swingler, out with Shoestring Press, and, forthcoming, The Sailors of Ulm. He curates the T-junction international poetry festival in Middlesbrough, runs the Ripon Poetry Festival and edits Smokestack Books. Jennifer Edgecombe grew up in Cornwall and now lives on the Kent coast. As well as in PN Review and elsewhere, her poems and reviews have appeared in AmbitCaught By the River and Lighthouse.

Lisa Kelly is half-Danish and half-deaf. She is the Chair of Magma Poetry and co-edited issue 63, The Conversation Issue, and issue 69, The Deaf Issue. She is a regular host of poetry evenings and a creative writing teacher at the Torriano Meeting House in London, and her pamphlets are Bloodhound (Hearing Eye, 2012) and Philip Levine’s Good Ear (Stonewood Press, 2018). She is a freelance journalist specialising in technology, and her first full collection, A Map Towards Fluency, is out this month.

Also on the editorial board of Magma Poetry is Stav Poleg, whose poetry has been published on both sides of the Atlantic, including in The New YorkerKenyon ReviewPoetry London and Poetry Ireland Review. She teaches at the Poetry School in London, and her debut pamphlet, Lights, Camera, was published in 2017, with her first full-length poetry collection ready to go. Her graphic-novel installation, Dear Penelope: Variations on an August Morning, created with artist Laura Gressani, was acquired by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

John Wilkinson has published extensively and his most recent collection, My Reef My Manifest Array, came out earlier this year with Carcanet, while his Salt Publishing book of 2014, Selected Poems: Schedule of Unrest, pulls together pieces from his collections of poetry published between 1974 and 2008. He was born in London and grew up on the Cornish coast and on Dartmoor, but has lived in the States since 2005 and is a Professor in the Department of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Chicago.

The event is free, although you are encouraged to sign up via Eventbrite, and refreshments will be served from 6.30pm.

Doors and refreshments 6.30pm. Tickets are free, but you can reserve your place via Eventbrite.

PN Review Summer Launch at Castlefield Gallery, Castlefield

24 July 2019
Free entry

‘Ladybird’ on London Review Bookshop website

lrb - ladybird

EVENT: We’re celebrating Carcanet’s New Poetries VII with a reunion event at the Bookshop on Tuesday 18 June, featuring poets Zohar AtkinsRowland BagnallIsabel GalleymoreLisa Kelly and Phoebe PowerBook tickets here. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be featuring a poem from the collection by each of the poets who’ll be reading – check back regularly for the next one.

Ladybird

Every autumn I forget they do this,
until they do –
hard-faced carapaces,
little mechanical legs across my bedroom ceiling
insinuating into warm gaps,

congregating under cornices,
black-eyed blotches staring me down.

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home
Your house is on fire, and your children are gone

Occasionally, a maverick, lured by the mellow glow
of the bedside light, will lift its elytra,
like the doors on a Lamborghini
to reveal filmy black wings,

and fly towards my open mouth.

Ladybird, lazy bird fly out of bed
Your home is infested …

but I shrink back from scooping its crunchiness
into tissue, messing
with its reflex bleeding, yellow toxins oozing
out of its exoskeleton.

All except one and that’s little Ann

(The receptionist had a tattoo on her arm.
In its freckled baby belly, Always in my heart)

New Poetries VII’ is published by Carcanet, price £14.99. Zohar Atkins, Rowland Bagnall, Isabel Galleymore, Lisa Kelly and Phoebe Power will be reading from the collection at the Bookshop on Tuesday 18 June. Book tickets here.

PN Review Summer Launch 24 July at the Castlefield Gallery, Manchester

PN Review summer launch

Please join us for the Summer Launch of PN Review, with readings from contributors John Wilkinson, Lisa Kelly, Joe Carrick-Varty, Jennifer Edgecombe, Stav Poleg and Andy Croft.

Tickets can be booked here

Date And Time

Wed, 24 Jul 2019, 18:30

 

This event is free & refreshments will be served.

Location

Castlefield Gallery, 2 Hewitt Street, 30 Cross Street, Manchester, M15 4GB

John Wilkinson was born in London and grew up on the Cornish coast and on Dartmoor. After university at Cambridge he trained as a psychiatric nurse and worked in mental health services and public health in the West Midlands, South Wales and London’s East End. In 2005 he moved to the United States and has held academic positions at the University of Notre Dame and at the University of Chicago where he is currently a Professor in the Department of English and Director of Creative Writing. Wilkinson has held Fulbright and National Humanities Center fellowships. His extensive publications include Selected Poems (Schedule of Unrest, 2014), and his most recent collection, My Reef My Manifest Array (2019).

Lisa Kelly is half-Danish and half-deaf. She is the Chair of Magma Poetryand co-edited issue 63, The Conversation Issue; and issue 69, The Deaf Issue. She is a regular host of poetry evenings at the Torriano Meeting House, London, and has an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Lancaster University. Her pamphlets are Bloodhound (Hearing Eye, 2012) and Philip Levine’s Good Ear (Stonewood Press, 2018). She is currently a freelance journalist specialising in technology, and has worked as an actress, life model, Consumer Champion, waitress, sales assistant and envelope stuffer. She teaches creative writing and poetry in performance at the Torriano Meeting House. Her first full collection, A Map Towards Fluency, is published in June.

Jennifer Edgecombe grew up in Cornwall and now lives on the Kent coast. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Ambit, Caught By the River, Lighthouse, PN Review and elsewhere.

Stav Poleg‘s poetry has been published on both sides of the Atlantic, including in The New Yorker, Kenyon Review, Poetry London and Poetry Ireland Review. Her debut pamphlet, Lights, Camera, was published in 2017. She has recently completed work on the manuscript of her first full-length poetry collection. Her graphic-novel installation, Dear Penelope: Variations on an August Morning, created with artist Laura Gressani, was acquired by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. She serves on the editorial board of Magma Poetry and teaches at the Poetry School, London.

Joe Carrick-Varty won the 2018 New Poets Prize and his debut pamphlet Somewhere Far was published by The Poetry Business in June of this year.

Andy Croft has written and edited many books, including Red Letter Days, Comrade Heart, A Weapon in the Struggle, Red Sky at Night (with Adrian Mitchell) and After the Party. His books of poetry include Ghost Writer, 1948 (with Martin Rowson), Three Men on the Metro (with WN Herbert and Paul Summers) A Modern Don Juan (with NS Thompson et al), Letters to Randall Swingler and The Sailors of Ulm (forthcoming). He curates the T-junction international poetry festival in Middlesbrough, runs the Ripon Poetry Festival and edits Smokestack Books.

The event will begin at 18:30, refreshments will be provided and copies of PN Review available to buy. Tickets are free but please reserve them here. There is also a Facebook event. For any enquiries about the event please email jazmine@carcanet.co.uk.

Launch of issue one of Finished Creatures at the Crown Tavern

It was a special evening celebrating the launch of the beautifully produced Finished Creatures, issue one, at the Crown Tavern upstairs in the Apollo Room.

Publisher and editor, Jan Heritage, has done a marvellous job getting so many wonderful poems inside its stunning covers. Poets include Paul Stephenson, Susannah Hart, Philip Gross, L Kiew, Cheryl Moskowitz, and many more.

I am delighted to have two poems in and my second IKEA poem making an appearance! I’ve got a pamphlet’s worth but don’t think IKEA will be sponsoring me anytime soon…

Here’s a pic of Richard Price on the mic, reading his very moving poem, ‘The air that he breathes’.

The crowd was big and beautiful! Just how we like it…

finished creatures