Rosie Shepperd

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Friday Poem – ‘Afternoon tea at your house is the otherness I’ve been chasing’, Rosie Shepperd

Friday Poem Afternoon tea Rosie Shepperd

Our Friday Poem today is an injection of calm into an otherwise mad Black Friday, from Rosie Shepperd’s captivating collection, The Man at the Corner Table.

the man at the corner table rosie shepperd‘Afternoon tea at your house is the otherness I’ve been chasing’ – a poem that settles you down and sits you in strangely rich and sweet surroundings: we notice the ‘butterscotch floor’ and the ‘careful coal pieces like strong oily truffles’ whilst all around the scent of sugar and brewing tea slowly builds. Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?

The Man at the Corner Table is full of similarly delectable poems, where sensual evocations of food and drink take centre stage.

 

Rosie Shepperd Afternoon Tea Friday Poem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re suddenly feeling in the mood for a nice warm cuppa, we wouldn’t be surprised.
Keep an eye on the Seren website tomorrow, as we will be giving away free Morgan’s Brew tea and free chocolate with every order to help you recover from the Black Friday mayhem. And, as an added treat, enjoy free postage, too! The offer commences at midnight tonight, and runs through ’til Monday.

 

 

The Man at the Corner Table is available on the Seren website: £9.99

Join our free Book Club for 20% off every book you buy from us.

 

 

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Friday Poem – ‘I know I’ve gone too far when I think of pappardelle with broccoli’, Rosie Shepperd

Friday Poem Pappardelle with Brocolli Rosie Shepperd

Today we’re celebrating National Cheese Lovers’ Day with Rosie Shepperd’s gloriously gourmet poem, ‘I know I’ve gone too far when I think of pappardelle with broccoli’, from The Man at the Corner Table.

the man at the corner table rosie shepperdRosie Shepperd’s debut collection, The Man at the Corner Table is an evocative and intimate celebration of food and place, with poems that posess a stunning intensity and a winning insistence on detail. ‘I know I’ve gone too far when I think of pappardelle with broccoli’ conjures the speaker’s deliberately precise ritual of food preparation – the broccoli ‘diagonally cut’, the knowledge that ‘steam holds the flavour’ – staging it against loneliness and loss, the depth of emotion making itself known like a subtle flavour in a delicate dish.
In Rosie’s words:

The poem is the product of a little “opposition research” into the link between the perception and conception of feeling. So the grief of the speaker has certain concrete particulars that she doesn’t understand. The process of making the dish with (Alpine) cheese and vivid broccoli is her way of exploring that grief. Fontina (cheese that is made high in the clouds) is a way in to this poem. The way out is an acceptance of the “bitterness” in the herbs and black pepper and in the resolution of making sense of what was and is no longer – through the universal – “sand” or “gravel” or “ash”. The semiotic turn comes with the acknowledged need for comfort – maybe nutmeg or butter. Next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buy your copy of The Man at the Corner Table from the Seren website: £9.99

Join our free, no-purchase necessary Book Club for 20% off every time you shop with us

 

 

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Friday Poem – ‘Savoy Hotel, London’, Rosie Shepperd

friday poem rosie shepperd

This week our Friday Poem is from Rosie Shepperd’s tantalising debut, The Man at the Corner Table. You can hear Rosie read from this collection live on National Poetry Day, 6 October, at Berkhamsted Waterstones alongside Caroline Smith and Graham Clifford.

the man at the corner table rosie shepperdThe Man at the Corner Table crackles with the unexpected. The voice is one of urban sophistication; a merciless charm that teases and tempts us with sensual evocations of food and place. The reader is surprised with tastes, scents, colours and textures. There is a winning insistence on detail offered with an irony that blends into satire.

 

 

Savoy Hotel, London
Those nights downstairs at the American Bar;
it’s not just the chairs that show gilt in the telling.
Back then we were almost quite something.
You and London were lean;
your eyes, a fraction off-centre as you
struggled not to say,
We have this connection. My God.
You overplayed.
And not just your hand.

My role in this mellow
drama was to shift that arse
you loved to chase and twitch my best side
close to the oh-so-Maraschinos.
Too long ago, they were fruit in a tree.
Some tree.
I guess they were something for me
to play with; the pretence
we were ever friends was just
a way to simulate sharing.

30:70 and I never found out
who made the best bet
but I do know that’s the wrong word.
Early is just another kind of late and
anyway, you were always
there each night, every night. There’s
no fool like a blind
fool; thank God I didn’t see the edge
till I was over and out
the other side.

 

Buy your copy of The Man at the Corner Table now: £9.99

Claim 20% when you become a Book Club member

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What do dads read?

It’s Father’s Day this weekend, and an opportunity for publishers to sell more books to that particular segment of the marketplace. It’s obvious from the annual Father’s Day offerings that Sport is one of dad’s favourite reads – especially if there’s a major international tournament occurring. Other pressies that will bless you with paternal approbation are books on War, Mass or Serial Killings, and Music (especially rock, blues and jazz; anything with a whiff of authenticity). Tie-ins to comedy TV panel shows are good. So, too, are novelty books about hobbies: World’s Greatest DIY Disasters, Cricket’s Top 100 Nightwatchmen, and extreme sports: Parkour in Powys, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Men read less fiction than women, so if you buy a novel, play safe and get one set in a war zone. Written by a man.

But how much do you love your dad? On Father’s Day, does he get what he wants, or something that’s good for him? Come to that, good for everyone. It’s a complex and nuanced world. Shouldn’t dad’s horizons be broadened? Maybe they aren’t as limited as reductive marketing categories would have us believe. Isn’t it time to throw tradition out of the window, and this year, get dad a book written (whisper it softly) by a woman?

Books from the Seren list, written by women, that dads would like:

Losing Israel Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year, Jasmine Donahaye’s moving and honest account of the collusion of her kibbutznik family in the displacement of Palestinians in 1948 spans travel writing, nature writing and memoir.

The Man at the Corner Table Rosie Shepperd’s debut collection features fabulous, sophisticated poetry about food and its central place in cultures around the world.

Star-Shot Mary-Ann Constantine’s stylish novel, set in and around Cardiff’s National Museum, is a subtle urban novel with a supernatural twist.

What book would you choose to give to your dad?

 

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Books for your Beloved | Valentine’s Poetry Sale

valentines sale 2016

Poetry is food for the soul, and the gift of a carefully-chosen collection of poems is the perfect romantic gesture.

For Valentine’s Day, we at Seren have hand-picked a few poetry collections your partner will fall head-over-heels for. All our Valentine’s picks are 35% off until midnight on that most magical day, February 14th, so take a look below and find the perfect book for your beloved.

My Family and Other Superheroes by Jonathan Edwards
my family and other superheroes jonathan edwardsWinner of the Costa Poetry Award 2014, this vibrant and dynamic debut introduces one of Wales’ most intriguing new voices. The superheroes in question are a motley crew. Evel Knievel, Sophia Loren, Ian Rush, Marty McFly, a bicycling nun and a recalcitrant hippo – all leap from these pages and jostle for position, alongside valleys mams, dads and bamps, described with great warmth. This is a post-industrial valleys upbringing re-imagined through the prism of pop culture and surrealism.

£9.99 £6.49

 

The Man at the Corner Table by Rosie Shepperd
the man at the corner table rosie shepperdRosie Shepperd’s debut poetry collection crackles with the unexpected. The voice is one of urban sophistication; a merciless charm that teases and tempts us with sensual evocations of food and place. The reader is surprised with tastes, scents, colours and textures. There is a winning insistence on detail offered with an irony that blends into satire.
These poems are exquisite meals, to be devoured amidst surprising intimacies.

£9.99 £6.49

 

Infragreen by Kate Bingham
infragreenPerceptive, persuasive and intricately made, these poems take the reader on a startling and unfamiliar journey through everyday experiences and phenomena. Her keen eye, reflectiveness and quiet wit endow her subjects with a shimmering freshness.
In Bingham’s hands, the familiar sights and hypnotic routines that normally lull the brain into unthinking acquiescence are the starting points for finding new richness in the world around us and our participation in it.

£9.99 £6.49

 

Masculine Happiness, David Foster-Morgan
Masculine happinessThe thoughtful and winning debut collection from Wales-based David Foster-Morgan. Complex, ironic, layered, fashioned with an acute and subtle intelligence, these poems are as likely to reference Elvis as Borges.
Humour, astute satire and insightful character poems are combined here in this collection of beautiful, multi-layered poems.

£9.99 £6.49

 

 

Playing House by Katherine Stansfield
playing house katherine stansfieldA concise wit, a distinct voice and an unsettling view of the domestic characterise these poems whose subjects are the ordinary as viewed through the author’s satirical yet sympathetic eye. John Lennon’s tooth, an imaginary ‘Canada’, bees in Rhode Island, cats and office politics are all peculiar grist to this author’s mill. She presents both historical subjects such as Captain Scott of the Antarctic, and common objects, such as household bleach, from a skewed perspective, adding humour, drama and a quietly distinctive pathos.

£9.99 £6.49

 

Cohabitation by Kate Bingham
cohabitation kate binghamA brisk wit and intelligence characterises these poems by Kate Bingham. Her subjects are friends, family, work, the experiences of any day, but her keen and compassionate focus brings these moments vividly to life. Her gift is a point of view that is startling, moving and humorous.
Reflective and playful, intimate and exuberant, these poems have a wry, deliberate logic of their own which makesCohabitation an engaging as well as an illuminating first collection.

£6.95 £4.52

 

For Valentine’s deliveries, we recommend ordering before Thursday 11th February.

Why not share your love for poetry with us on Twitter? Use the hashtag #BooksForMyBeloved to tell us what you and your partner will be reading on Valentine’s Day.

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Help the Homeless: A Charity Evening with Rosie Shepperd

Rosie Shepperd is teaming up with Waterstones Guildford to present a charity launch of her debut collection, The Man at the Corner Table.

Join Rosie and the Waterstones team at 18:30 on Monday 7th December for a sophisticated evening that will include wine, canapés, and a talk from Rosie about her dazzling collection. The event itself is free, but any who wish to attend are encouraged to make a donation, however large or small, to the Number Five Project, a Guildford-based homeless shelter.

Number Five offers short-term emergency accommodation for homeless men and women over the age of 18; they provide a hot meal, a hot shower, a bed for the night and breakfast the next morning, as well as 1-2-1 key-worker support to all residents.

For those of us lucky enough to have never been homeless, we can’t possibly imagine just how awful homelessness is. People who are homeless are in danger of being attacked, abused or stigmatised, and as the weather gets colder, many homeless people will not survive the winter.

So if you can, attend the launch and make a donation – if you can’t make a donation, why not spread the word? You could make a difference!

 

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Friday Poem – South Shore House, Long Island

the man at the corner table rosie shepperd

This week’s poem is from Rosie Shepperd’s debut collection, The Man at the Corner Table.

The Man at the Corner Table crackles with the unexpected. The voice is one of urban sophistication; a merciless charm that teases and tempts us with sensual evocations of food and place. The reader is surprised with tastes, scents, colours and textures. There is a winning insistence on detail offered with an irony that blends into satire.

The poems adopt a deadly seriousness to the business of comedy.  In‘It isn’t just the under-floor heating that makes me lie down in the kitchen’, the poem explores the ineffable by sending it up in a domestic setting that subverts as it disconcerts.

The gorgeous place settings of these poems are not just carefully delineated backdrops. They toy with our interpretations of ‘at table’. As in a Dutch master ‘tablescape’, they become symbolic of our relation to ourselves, to others and the world.

These poems are exquisite meals, to be devoured amidst surprising intimacies, like the search for solace that is edging towards something more in ‘Balthazar Bakery, Spring Street, NY. Others explore troubling scenarios of grief and loss, such as the heartbreak in ‘You all have lied…’. Sometimes the poems appear like postcards from beautifully observed moments of exile, as in ‘Chorinho’ – where the author is hounded and haunted by unease. As in Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘Questions of Travel’ there is artfulness in this unease, and an obligation to close observation that resolutely refuses to moralize.

South Shore House, Long Island

Now the man who does the garden
has stopped gardening. Each Thursday he drifts
through the hothouse, composting silence.
His cash-in-hand drips home to Peru to feed
his sister and her children, Ana and round Amparo.
The youngest lives in an iron bed
on the longest, thinnest tubercular ward.
He will see them next year and waits without complaint,
sleeping his lunch hour in the coolness of the arbor
while the filthy cleaner flicks about your desk.
There’ll be ash under your chair and white musk
between the cushions. She checks empty
drawers and drops damp family secrets.
I pick them off and forget them.

The foxes are back tonight
savaging the trash, nosing the scent of bones.
Perhaps the ribcage of a roast.
Egg boxes, sticky with protein.
They find nothing, but I hear
their icy sex and cannot shake them.
One is injured; his eye reflects
a single bulb from the not quite busted light.
Rime hangs on his breath.
Lightly, he lifts a front leg. Up.
Slowly down. Up. I watch the dark space
between us, feel the fog
settle back. We are again separate.
I am not afraid of being alone.
I am alone because I am not afraid.

Order The Man at the Corner Table from our website.