Poetry in Presteigne: Less than a fortnight to go

A few of our East Radnor neighbours

The brand new Welsh poetry festival, Poetry in Presteigne, opens on Friday 16th October in the lovely town of Presteigne, Powys, already famous for its annual music festival.  There is a rich programme of readings, events, performances, music and art so book now at www.poetryinpresteigne.com.  Today the autumn weather is glorious in East Radnor, the part of Powys where Presteigne is located, so as well as the poetry there is excellent walking and scenery to make a weekend stay a break to remember.  The full programme is on the website.

The Poetry Book Fair 2015

The Conway Hall around mid-afternoon and heaving

Rack would like to thank all the people who came to Saturday's Poetry Book Fair in London's Conway Hall and who stopped by our stall for a chat or a purchase.  It was a huge turnout and we are pleased to have sold so many pamphlets. If you weren't able to be there and want to order any Rack Press titles you can do so here.

Rack publisher Nicholas Murray

A New Poetry Festival: Poetry in Presteigne 16-18 October

Rack Press is looking forward to taking part in the brand new Welsh poetry festival, Poetry in Presteigne over the weekend of 16-18 October. This new festival in Mid Wales is now open for booking and events include "Tango in Stanzas", poet Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch's collaboration with Tango dancer Peter Baldock; an evening with National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke; a reading by Paul Henry; poetry and blues with Hollow Log; and readings from poets published by Flarestack, Cinnamon, and Rack Press; and much else.  Roger Garfitt, Edward Storey, Jan Fortune, Steve Griffiths, Ros Hudis, Jacqui Rowe, Meredith Andrea, Fiona Owen, Susan Richardson, and John Barnie are some of the poets appearing across the weekend

Rack will be fielding poets Nicky Arscott and Anna Lewis whose new pamphlets appeared this summer (and which can be purchased online here) and Rack publisher Nicholas Murray will be talking about animal poetry with readings.

Book now!

The Radnor Forest, near Presteigne, Powys

Poem of the Week: Nicky Arscott

This week's poem is taken from Nicky Arscott's Rack pamphlet, Soft Mutation, which can be ordered here.

Cheap Flights to Goa

The Israeli on her bodyboard again.

Alan licks his lips – fixed on the back and forth –

then misses his mouth with his straw.

Deeply embedded in cocktail hour

my toes clench sand – Alan’s horny old toes

attach too, like to the lining of a womb –

there are two types of person in this world: 

them who can, and them who couldn’t 

get a hard-on in a brothel, says Alan

sucking loudly. The Israeli girl is hiding 

from the army. But which one are you. 

The willing suspension of virility. 

The Arabian Sea is heaven. 

In a minute, a coconut will fall on Alan’s head –

killing him outright – and I will be unhappy

not to have got this sorted. The girl comes onto 

land, her lovely cheek still resting on the board. 

But which one are you, I say again – it is difficult 

to peel away our eyes: her hair it spreads out

blackly on the sand. The waiter brings another round, this time 

without umbrellas. A thwacking through the palms. 

The skinny boys are pulling in their nets.

Poem of the Week: Anna Lewis

This week's poem taken from a recent collection is from Anna Lewis's pamphlet published in July, The Blue Cell, a sequence of poems exploring the lives of a number of early medieval Welsh saints.  Melangell, who fled from Ireland to Powys to escape an unwanted marriage here shelters a hare from hunters.  Hares are a rarer sight than they were but they are still seen occasionally, and we sometimes see them near to the home of Rack Press in Powys.

The Blue Cell can be ordered here for immediate dispatch, £5 post-free.

Melangell

Its heart was quick against her thigh,

then slowed.  She felt the hitching rhythm

of its ribs subside, kept her own breath 

as she heard the dogs pant close, 

their narrow bodies slit the bracken.  

Birds swung up from the slope

and marked the line of their approach;

the saplings shook, then from the trees 

poured horses, men in red and gold.  

And it was the same as the day 

she first stepped onto the sea,

handed herself to the waves 

and to the will of God: brash sunlight 

thrown back, the green earth 

tipping under her feet.  Not so much 

bravery, not so much faith 

as a small, dull light that scratched 

into life in her chest, then grew

until she could not see around its edge.  

Beyond, there was quiet.  The hare

dropped its head to its paws, and slept.

Rack Poets at Ledbury and an Interview

Damian Walford Davies, AC Bevan and
SamanthaWynne-Rhydderch at a Rack reading in
Presteigne, Powys earlier this year

Thank you to the Poetry School for publishing an interview with Rack Press where we tell it like it is, we hope!

And don't forget 4th July at the Ledbury Poetry Festival where poets Nicky Arscott and Anna Lewis were due to launch their new collections, respectively Soft Mutation and The Blue Cell.  Unfortunately Anna can't be there for family reasons so AC Bevan will be reading with Nicky at lunchtime on that Saturday.  Do come along and hear two original and lively poets and the two new titles can now be ordered here online.

Talking about Edward Thomas 17 June

I will be talking to Jean Moorcroft Wilson, author of a new biography of Edward Thomas, at an event at the London Review Bookshop on 17th June.

I leave you with a quotation from his fragment of autobiography The Childhood of Edward Thomas (1938) where he describes himself as “a citizen’s son of London in the ‘eighties of the nineteenth century".  Reading that book and the biography one realises how much this great celebrant of the English and Welsh countryside was a child of the south London suburbs (and explicitly saw himself as such).