Small Press Poetry and Indies 2013Leave a reply

A moveable feast of blogs and websites dedicated to poetry as literary form necessarily lacks                           

an authoritative critical hub, which is an excellent thing. Current literary critique lends weight to                           

fictional work and celebrity biography as ‘cultural’, thus levelling newspaper inches at some                       

phantasmagoric hybrid audience of child/woman now perceived as the Irish  literary market.

Those of us who have left the nursery and have achieved literacy may require less saccharine                             

fare. The following is a list of some indys and small­press publishers that caught my eye in                               

2013.

Indies for working poets fit well alongside small press publishers

Left to Right

● The Pickled Body

● Southword Literary Journal

● The Stinging Fly

● Poetry Ireland Review

● Crannóg Literary Journal

● The Burning Bush Online

● The Poetry Bus Magazine

● Bradshaw Books

Poets that are much missed 2012­2013

● Dennis O’Driscoll

● Seamus Heaney

● Doris Lessing

● Ahmed Fouad Negm

● Kofi Awoonor

Talking about Books Ireland losing its Arts Council grant  is unseemly

Talk about Books Ireland losing its Arts Council grant

Commentators are employed by newspaper editors, they all talk about the same books in one                           

form or another across multiple newspapers, which I no longer care to buy. Heaven forfend                           

that an editor would employ someone to review, edit and discuss poetry. Newspaper editors                         

and list­contributors play their part here by blurring the lines between culture and entertainment,                         

coming out with some type of lifestyle fiction based in the simple and unchallenging precepts of                             

accessibility, simplicity and passivity.

Books Ireland lost its Arts Council grant and was threatened with closure, as this is Ireland,                             

protest was confined to a few letters in the paper and a Facebook group. Well done to those                                 

who protested, many just sat down and counted their lottery cash, not thinking of Irish writing                             

as a diversity. Books Ireland has a new publisher and will recommence publishing in January                           

2014.

Poetry that caught my little eye in 2013

Left to Right

● The Shadow Owner’s Companion by Eleanor Hooker

● Throats Full Of Graves by Gillian Prew

● Nobody Wants To Go TO Heaven… But Everyone Wants To Die by David McLean

● The Wild Pupil by Kathy D’Arcy

Left to Right

● All Stepped/Undone by Michael McAloran

● Mysteries Of The Home by Paula Meehan

● The County Durham’s Miner’s Grandaughter’s Farewell To The Harlan County Miner’s

Grandson by Kit Fryatt

● Zinger by Alan Jude Moore

Disposable crap sells Newspapers , fact

Poetry is clearly not a disposable form, like so much semi­literate                   

fiction destined for B movies or for chat­couches on daily tv. It is a literary form that requires                                 

the reader to drop off their passivity and complacency. This presents a difficulty to the general                             

editor, who relies on passive consumption as many of us rely on oxygen.

The drop­off in newspaper purchases is only matched by the immense growth in blogs and                           

websites that fill the void left by this magnetic pull to homogeneity expressed in an approach to                               

arts that is based in arts as entertainment/arts as product.

Anti­poetry is now culture in Ireland’s market­driven media.

The issues of the day provide fodder for the chattering classes in much the same manner as                               

fast­food fills an endless hole and thereby generates obesity. Fiction and gossip are the                         

disposable trans­fat of the entertainment world. But like trans­fats they glut, and end up                         

distorting the shape of the body, in this instance the body of Irish literature. The shape of                               

literature in Ireland is becoming simplistic and disposable and indistinguishable indeed from                     

Hello Magazine! It has morphed into fiction and chick­lit comestibles, the easy hitters.

Contemporary Irish Arts : anyone can get an artist exemption

I suppose that someone has to pimp poetry and to blog about                     

what goes on at the nether end of the literary spectrum, whilst awaiting for decent reviews                             

and discussion on arts , as opposed to fashionableedutainment. Literally anyone can apply                       

for and get tax exemptions for their artwork, go on and apply.

Poetry Ireland deleted the PI Forum from their servers in 2013

Since I started blogging about poetry in 2008, I have noted                   

more international poetry editors opening out magazines and writing spaces to the                     

committed poet. Although in Ireland, Poetry Ireland has been busily closing down their                       

2000­2013 poetry forum which housed an area for peer­review of original work. Poetry                       

Ireland announced this in short­form and then proceeded to delete a lot of original work from                             

their servers. I await with bated breath their new web­development ideas.

In the meantime, I suppose that Irish poets can use groups on Facebook or Linkedin and                             

consign their copyrights to Mark Zuckerberg who may be more sensitive to the provision of                           

working spaces than PI. The Irish editor appears to be less generous about creating                         

accessible archives and working­spaces to the emergent writer than his international                   

counterparts.

Revival Literary Journal ceased operation this year of 2013,               

as didDoghouse Books in Kerry. Books Ireland was recently threatened with closure after                       

the Irish Arts Council pulled their grant. Books Ireland has a new publisher, but these issues                             

go largely undiscussed as really there is no place where poetry is discussed in Ireland. Just                             

as we, a poetic nation (apparently), have no Poetry Foundation. Our colleges do not                         

adequately index our poetry history, or provide accessible archives to the reading public.

Poetry in Ireland is paltry feast left to the wit and wisdom of individual publishers and                             

bloggers who must construct a cloak of holes and moths to illuminate Irish poetic work.                           

There is no provision made or the poetry reader that is centred in a semblance of respect                               

for poetic form, or for its growing variety.

Avant­garde is a dirty word in Ireland, like grief, sex, or poverty

Left to right

● Crack Poet by Kate O’Shea

● Skylight 47

● The Blind by C. Murray

● In Damage Seasons by Michael McAloran

● A New Ulster Magazine

● The Zero Eye by Michael McAloran

● Nobody wants to go to heaven…but everybody wants to die by David McLean

● Throats Full of Graves by Gillian Prew

Irish Poetry Imprints and Websites

● A New Ulster

● Abattoir Whispers

● Aine MacAodha

● Éigse Michael Hartnett

● Ó Bhéal

● Belfast is my Mojo

● Bone Orchard Poetry

● Bradshaw Books

● Burning Bush 2

● CanCan

● Cló Iar­Chonnachta

● Crannóg Literary magazine

● Dedalus Press

● Doireann Ní Ghríofa

● Elizabeth Kate Switaj

● Elliptical Movements

● Gallery Press

● Irish Pages

● Kate Dempsey

● Lapwing Press

● Lapwing Publications

● Michael J Maguire

● Munster Literature Centre

● Nuala Ní Chonchúir

● Partial Shade

● Poetry Ireland Review Newsletter

● Post

● Revival Literary Journal

● Salmon Press

● Smithereens Press

● tender journal

● The Burning Bush Revival Meeting

● The Columba Press

● The Dolmen Press

● The Gallery Press

● The Galway Review

● The Metre Archives

● The Moth Magazine

● The Penny Dreadful

● The Poetry Bus

● The SHOp , Poetry Magazine

● The SouthWord Journal

● The Stinging Fly

● Wurm in Apfel

Apparently Poetry has little significance to those who collate end of years lists. Poetry tokenism                           

is become a joke. I would rather not read some attempts at poetry book review unless they are                                 

in poetry journals. Having often wondered at newspaper editors’ tendency to dislike poetry ,                         

came to the conclusion that it is down to two issues, money and ignorance.

When the literary arts are approached as product, as opposed to artistic process, a whole lot                             

of crap floats up. Poethead is about poetry as process, and likes to show poets working.