Pamphlets

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Friday Poem – ‘On Wonder Woman’s Island’ by Alison Binney

This week our Friday Poem is ‘On Wonder Woman’s Island’ by Alison Binney from her debut pamphlet Other Women’s Kitchens which is the winner of the Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet competition 2020.

This cover shows a colourful painting of a kitchen with the fain shadows of people moving through it.

Other Women’s Kitchens is Alison Binney’s debut pamphlet of poems and introduces us to a gifted new voice who writes with flair and feeling about coming out and coming of age as a gay woman in 21st century Britain. The collection explores the challenges of discovering and owning a lesbian identity in the 1980s and 1990s and the joy of finding both love and increased confidence in that identity as an adult. An adroit admixture of the heart-wrenching and the humorous, the book features shaped and ‘found’ pieces, traditional narrative and compact prose poems. Beautifully entertaining, pointedly political and often very funny, Other Women’s Kitchens is essential reading. Seren is thrilled to be presenting this author’s first collected work.

On Wonder Woman's Island the women are all leather and deltoids, sword fights and whirling hair. They call 'you are stronger than your know,' reaching out sinewy forearms to lift each other up off the sand. Any time you can yell 'Shield!' just for the hell of it and a girl will kneel, shield angled over thigh, while another runs up, springs, fires an arrow mid-leap, lands on a silver horse. At night there's a cave with an underground waterfall jacuzzi and a nook in the wall thick with fur. And if the men come, lugging guns up the beach, you sleep on, cat-like: seeing only sheer cliffs and bare rock they will soon turn tail, their flag not worth the planting here, and the breeze long gone.

Other Women’s Kitchens is available on the Seren website: £5.00

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The Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet Competition is now open for entries for 2021. Find out more on the Mslexia website.

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Friday Poem – ‘Dear Anne Monroe, Healthcare Assistant’ by Bryony Littlefair

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Dear Anne Monroe, Healthcare Assistant’ by Bryony Littlefair from her Mslexia prize-winning pamphlet Giraffe.

Giraffe Bryony Littlefair

Poems need head, heart, and soul but this particular pamphlet has an extra ingredient – a feminist kick. There is a good deal of wit on display, but also a wonderful humanity. There are also other novelistic qualities: clarity of language and the use of realism, a feeling for plot and incident, an eye and ear for character. The author indicates emotion and relationships in a myriad of subtle ways: heartbreak can be summarised by one glance at the ‘Lido’. Love can be inferred by the tender description of someone from the back, as they are walking away. Giraffe, the title and a euphemism for happiness, is a beguiling, beautiful and entertaining debut pamphlet of poems.

Giraffe is available on the Seren website: £5.00

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Friday Poem – ‘Weaving with Rushes’ by Sarah Wimbush

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Weaving with Rushes’ by Sarah Wimbush from her debut pamphlet Bloodlines which has just been shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2020.

Bloodlines is an exploration of Sarah Wimbush’s own Gypsy/Traveller heritage, a journey made by piecing together fragments of distant stories and a scattered language. Along the way, we meet people who are ‘tethered to the seasons’; voices that reverberate with a sense of family and resilience, and always with that constant wonder of being part of something colourful, untamed and rare.

“A thrilling debut…” – Daljit Nagra

Bloodlines is available on the Seren website: £5.00

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Enjoy this filmpoem of Sarah reading the pamphlet’s title poem ‘Bloodlines’. Film made by Isobel Turner.

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Friday Poem – ‘The Bittern’ by Sarah Wimbush

Our Friday Poem this week is ‘The Bittern’ by Sarah Wimbush from her new pamphlet Bloodlines which won the Mslexia/PBS Women’s Poetry Pamphlet Competition 2019.

Bloodlines is an exploration of Sarah Wimbush’s own Gypsy/Traveller heritage, a journey made by piecing together fragments of distant stories and a scattered language. Along the way, we meet people who are ‘tethered to the seasons’; voices that reverberate with a sense of family and resilience, and always with that constant wonder of being part of something colourful, untamed and rare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloodlines is available on the Seren website: £5.00

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy direct from us.

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Friday Poem – ‘Noticing Cards While Eating Stuffing’ by Cathy Bryant

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Noticing Cards While Eating Stuffing’ by Cathy Bryant from the pamphlet Twelve Poems for Christmas.

This sparkling selection of Christmas poems is the perfect stocking filler for any poetry addict. These are poems full of feeling that resist cliché, that touch on classic ‘Christmas’ themes, but bring them to life from fresh perspectives. The pamphlet opens with Pippa Little’s lyrical and tender poem, ‘St. Leonore and the Robin’, and features poems both humorous and contemplative. Small enough to send with (or instead of) a card, this is the perfect festive treat for your loved ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twelve Poems for Christmas is available on the Seren website: £5.00

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy from us.

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Friday Poem – ‘Driving Home’ by Christine Evans

Our Friday Poem this week is ‘Driving Home’ by Christine Evans, from our regional pamphlet Poems from Snowdonia.

Poems from Snowdonia is part of Seren’s pamphlet series celebrating the spirit of place. The dramatic mountain ranges of the Snowdonia National Park take centre stage here, with their craggy peaks and waterfalls, along with the abundant wildlife, particularly birds like the Red Kite, Greenfinch and Chough. There are also poems set in coastal areas, the beaches around the Dyfi estuary, in Gwydyr Forest, on a hill farm near Blaenau Ffestiniog and in a Bethesda quarry painted by Peter Prendergast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poems from Snowdonia is available from the Seren website: £5.00

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy from us.

Give the perfect gift: Each of our regional pamphlets come with with an envelope and a postcard making them the perfect stocking filler for your loved ones this Christmas. Other titles in the series include Poems from The Borders, Poems from Cardiff and Poems from Pembrokeshire. 

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Friday Poem – ‘Severn Bore’ by Catherine Fisher

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Severn Bore’ by Catherine Fisher which first appeared in her 1988 collection Immrama, and later in our regional pamphlet Poems from The Borders.

Poems from The Borders is part of Seren’s pamphlet series celebrating the spirit of place. Featured poems range from “the spine of the A470”, through Monmouthshire, over the dramatic Brecon Beacons, and also through the Black Mountains towards Hay-on-Wye, towns in Herefordshire and Radnorshire and along rivers, the Wye and Severn.​

 

 

 

 

 

A prolific, popular and prize-winning author of fantasy fiction, Catherine began her career as a poet, and returned to poetry earlier this year with her collection The Bramble King. Her first collection since 1999, it is full of darkly resonant tales ingenious parables, curiously haunted rooms and palaces, and beautifully observed images of the natural world.

The Bramble King is available on the Seren website: £9.99

 

Poems from The Borders is available on the Seren website: £5

Immrama is available on the Seren website: £3.95

Next Wednesday (28 August), Catherine will be at The Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye alongside our poetry editor Amy Wack to read from Poems from The Borders. They will be joined by Christopher Meredith, Maggie Harris, Rhiannon Hooson, Emma van Woerkom, Charlie Wilkinson, Nicholas Murray, Nicholas Whitehead and Bob Walton. Find out more here.

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Friday Poem – ‘Taken for Pearls’ by Tony Curtis

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Taken for Pearls’ by Tony Curtis which appears in our regional pamphlet Poems from Pembrokeshire.

Last week Tony read poems from the pamphlet alongside Amy Wack at the Llangwm Literature Festival as part of the Poems from Pembrokeshire tour. The next stop is the Tenby Museum on Wednesday 21 August where Tony and Amy will be joined by several other poets for another afternoon of readings.

Poems from Pembrokeshire is part of Seren’s pamphlet series celebrating the spirit of place. An area of supreme but also disquieting beauty, Pembrokeshire has been the home to saints and pirates, the cradle of Tudor Kings and subject to oil spills and annual invasions of summer visitors. The undeniable loveliness of its off-shore islands: Ramsey, Grassholm, and Caldey, contrasts with the often harsh life of settlers, of monks and sea-fishing folk of the past, such as the stoic ‘Boatmen’ of Tenby.

 

 

Poems from Pembrokeshire is available on the Seren website: £5

Did you know? All of our regional pamphlets come with an envelope and a post card making them the perfect gift – keep them for yourself or send to a loved one. View the full range here. 

Can’t make the reading of Poems from Pembrokeshire at the Tenby Museum? Amy Wack will also be at the Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye on Wednesday 28 August reading from Poems from The Borders. Find out more here.

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy from us.

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Friday Poem – ‘Caldey Island’ by David Hodges

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Caldey Island’ by David Hodges which appears in our regional pamphlet Poems from Pembrokeshire. We hope everyone stays safe as we brace ourselves for stormy weather.

This month, our poetry editor Amy Wack is taking Poems from Pembrokeshire on tour. You can catch readings from the pamphlet at several venues over the next few weeks. The next event is at 12:30pm today at Llangwm Literary Festival in the Big Marquee. We will also be at Tenby Museum on Wednesday 21st August.

Poems from Pembrokeshire is part of Seren’s pamphlet series celebrating the spirit of place. An area of supreme but also disquieting beauty, Pembrokeshire has been the home to saints and pirates, the cradle of Tudor Kings and subject to oil spills and annual invasions of summer visitors. The undeniable loveliness of its off-shore islands: Ramsey, Grassholm, and Caldey, contrasts with the often harsh life of settlers, of monks and sea-fishing folk of the past, such as the stoic ‘Boatmen’ of Tenby.

 

 

Poems from Pembrokeshire is available on the Seren website: £5

Did you know? All of our regional pamphlets come with an envelope and a post card making them the perfect gift – keep them for yourself or send to a loved one. View the full range here. 

Can’t make a reading from Poems from Pembrokeshire? Amy Wack will also be at the Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye on Wednesday 28 August for readings from Poems from The Borders. Find out more here.

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy from us.

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Friday Poem – ‘Limousin, Lascaux’ by Jane Lovell

Our Friday Poem this week is ‘Limousin, Lascaux’ by Jane Lovell, which appears in her pamphlet This Tilting Earth, winner of the 2018 Mslexia and Poetry Book Society Women’s Pamphlet Prize.

In This Tilting Earth, J​​ane Lovell’s poems are both beautiful and disturbing. A deep feeling for the natural world is aligned with an acute lyric sensibility, as well as a profound ethical awareness of our responsibility for the planet and the devastation of its landscapes and vulnerable species.

‘Jane Lovell’s poems are crafted with a jeweller’s precision. They make visceral connections with the wild in a language all of her own.’ –James Roberts​

This Tilting Earth is available from the Seren website: £5. 

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