Rack Press Interviewed

Poet Martina Evans interviews Rack Press publisher Nicholas Murray (aka moi) on the Writer's Hub.  Have a look!

Free Verse poetry publishers' fair

Here are some pictures from the wonderful Free Verse poetry book fair held in London on Saturday.

Left: The inspirational Charles Boyle of CB Editions and prime mover of the Fair, introduces Christopher Reid, who opened the fair.  For once he was entitled to stand on a soap-box!








Right, poet Martina Evans reads at the Fair from her Rack Press pamphlet, Oh Bart!  Even the camera trembled with admiration.

Left: Denise Saul reading from her Rack Press pamphlet, House of Blue including her Geoffrey Dearmer prize-winning poem, "Leaving Abyssinia".



















Right: Melos Press founder, William Palmer, reads his moving poem "The Island Rescue" from the collection of that name.

Left: In the audience during the reading Rack Poets Denise Saul, Michèle Roberts, and Martina Evans

Right: The Rack Press book fair quiz:

Q: which national poetry treasure on the left is Michèle talking to here?

A: M****** Hor***tz

Poetry Book Fair Approaches!

Don't miss the poetry book fair in London this Saturday 8 September.

We will be there with readings from Denise Saul and Martina Evans at 11.30am

And countless other poets and publishers; it's the event of the season for lovers of real poetry

Poetry Fair 8 September: Get Your Diaries Out

We are very pleased to be taking part in the Poetry Book Fair in London on Saturday 8th September which promises to be bigger and better than last year.

We will be sharing a table with Melos Press and two of our Rack Press 2012 poets will be reading, Martina Evans and Denise Saul. There will be a chance to buy the work of all our poets.  There will be readings and workshops all day so if you like poetry and the independent presses make it a date now.

http://www.poetrybookfair.com

Robin Hood Book launched or Rack Press Goes to Hackney

23 poets, including the inimitable Michael Horovitz were at Centreprise Bookshop last night in Hackney for the launch of The Robin Hood Book: Verse Versus Austerity (Caparison) a collection of poems and prose edited by Alan Morrison and Angela Topping (copies of whose Rack Press pamphlet Catching On are still available here). Rack Press poets Ian Parks and Nicholas Murray read from their contributions to the anthology and we were pleased to see another voice from Wales, Mike Jenkins who read an excellent poem in Merthyr dialect.  The book can be obtained from www.the recusant.org.uk

Get Real Reviewed

Get Real!, the 2011 Rack Press pamphlet by Nicholas Murray, is reviewed positively in the latest issue of the estimable Poetry Wales (Summer 2012, 48 (1)) by Steve Hitchins who describes it as a "rhyming rant" which the author certainly wouldn't dispute. Written in response to the events surrounding the formation of the coalition government in 2010, Get Real! is done in a Burns-style stanza though the very strict metrical form resembles most closely that used by W H Auden in the 1930s in his poem "Brothers, when the sirens roar".  It is unfortunately sold out but the entire poem is included in Nicholas Murray's new poetry collection, Acapulco: New and Selected Poems (Melos) and it can be ordered online from Melos.  Hurry and buy now before the Coalition dissolves!

Dream Endings Wins 2012 Michael Marks Award

Róisín Tierney’s poetry collection Dream Endings has won the 2012 Michael Marks Award for the year’s best poetry pamphlet.  Rack Press was also shortlisted for the 2012 Michael Marks Publisher's Award (won on the night by Yorkshire publishers Smith Doorstop).  In addition to the prize of £5000, Róisín (seen here at the awards ceremony at the British Library with publisher Nicholas Murray) has won a place on the Harvard poetry school this summer in Greece.

The winner was announced at a ceremony at the British Library on 22nd June. It is the first time since the award was launched four years ago that a Welsh publisher or poet has been shortlisted.

When the shortlist for publisher of the year was announced, the judges said: "Rack Press, run by Nicholas Murray  and based in Powys, is notable for its beautifully minimalist, elegant pamphlets. Whilst the appearance of each is identical - a slim volume with simple typography on high-quality cream laid paper - Rack's published poets have a real diversity of style. Murray states that he believes 'in the poetry pamphlet as the natural vehicle for the single poem or sequence' and the judges felt that this was particularly effective in this year's Rack Press pamphlets.”

Roίsίn Tierney was born in Dublin in 1963 and studied psychology and philosophy at University College Dublin. She moved to London in 1985, where she has held jobs ranging from make-up artist to museum administrator. She has been widely published in magazines and group anthologies, and won many prizes, but Dream Endings represents her first solo published collection.

As the judges put it: "Dream Endings assembles a cast of misfits and eccentrics to explore illness, madness, incest and death, but Tierney's vision is at all times tender and non-judgemental. Her language is remarkable both for the lucidity of its surface and for the depths that it allows us to apprehend."

Dream Endings has very nearly sold out but a reprint has been arranged and it can be ordered now online here.