BROCKWAY ROOM (CONWAY HALL)
25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
10.30 Discussion: Meet the Editors!
Find out what editors really want! Let them tell you what they excites them most, find out what to avoid, and get the chance to ask them some questions. With Adele Ward of Ward Wood Publishing, Ed Doegar of The Rialto, and Jennifer Grigg of Green Bottle Press.
11.00 Seren
Caroline Smith, Kate Bingham, Judy Brown, Rosie Shepperd
Four Seren authors will be reading at the Fair this year: Judy Brown (her Crowd Sensations was a PBS Recommendation for Spring), Kate Bingham (Her third collection, Infragreen, arrived in 2015); Rosie Shepperd, whose recent debut is The Man at the Corner Table; and Caroline Smith, whose The Immigration Handbook is a beautiful and compassionate book that reflects her work with immigrants. Introduced by Seren Poetry Editor, Amy Wack.
11.30 Templar Poetry
Ian Harker
Goldfinches gatecrash Old Master paintings. An astronaut discovers that stars are not quite as he expected. TS Eliot steams out to sea disguised as an ocean liner. A caretaker realizes he’s the happiest man alive. Journeys from the Paris Métro to Blackpool Pleasure Beach to the North Face of Everest, these poems reveal miracles in many guises wherever they take us. Ian Harker’s debut short collection won the Templar Pamphlet Award in 2015.
12.00 Oversteps Books
Latest Ovesteps Poets
Janet Loverseed, Angela Stoner, Sally Festing, Simon Williams, Susan Taylor, Wendy Klein. These six poets all have new collections out with Oversteps in 2016.
12.30 The Melos Press
Nicholas Murray and Cathy Galvin
Nicholas Murray reads from The Migrant Ship – a new collection of lyric and political poetry, and Cathy Galvin from her Rough Translation, a worthy successor to her stunning first book, Black and Blue.
13.00 Discussion: Poetry & Politics
Chaired by Fiona Moore, with panellists Choman Hardi, WN Herbert, RA Villanueva and Sophie Mayer.
14.00 Burning Eye Books
Laurie Bolger, Jemima Foxtrot, Emily Harrison
Independent publishers and spoken word specialists Burning Eye Books showcase three breakthrough poets with books published in 2016: London Laureate Laurie Bolger; poet, musician, theatre-maker and performer Jemima Foxtrot; and Best Spoken Word Performer 2016 at The Saboteur Awards Emily Harrison.
14.30 Clinic
Readings from Clinic 2016 pamphlet poet(s) and contributors to Clinic IV anthology.
15.00 Shearsman Books
Carrie Etter, Geraldine Clarkson
Shearsman readers Carrie Etter and Geraldine Clarkson launch their new pamphlets, Scar and Declare, respectively.
15.30 if p then q
Philip Terry, Stephen Emmerson
Philip Terry is Director of the Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Essex. A new volume of poetry, Quennets, is out now from Carcanet in 2016. His if p then q collected Advanced Immorality contains an antonymic translation of Queneau’s Elementary Morality. Stephen Emmerson’s numerous publications include two with if p then q. His Poetry Wholes is a set of templates to make your own poetry and Family Portraits is a sequence where you, the reader, look inside the mirror.
16.00 New Departures/Poetry Olympics
Adam Horovitz, Vanessa Vie and Michael Horovitz and others
Live New Departures/Mini-Poetry Olympics readings, songpoems, jazzpoems et al from Adam Horovitz, Vanessa Vie and Michael Horovitz, alongside other performers.
GARDEN CAFE (OUTDOORS, WITH A CANOPY)
Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
11.00 Children’s Event!
The Emma Press
Space and Aliens: Poems for Children
(for 6+ but suitable for all ages)
Poems from a new anthology Watcher of the Skies: Poems about Space and Aliens and featuring readings from Lawrence Schimel and Kate Wakeling.
11.30 Children’s Event!
Paper Swans Press
Behind the Bikesheds
14-18 year-old-readers from Paper Swans Press and poets from the anthology Schooldays, which is a collection of poems about the shared experiences of school and youth, the nuances and memories that make you laugh, but very often cry.
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14.30 British Haiku Society
Readings by members of the British Haiku Society.
15.00 Sidekick Books
Birds, Beasts and Terrible Lizards
Sidekick Books present Birds, Beasts and Terrible Lizards, a literary bestiary. Readers will be performing animal poetry from titles such as Birdbook, Hell Creek Anthology and Lives Beyond Us, taking the audience from cinematic tigers to a choleric T-rex. Join us for fangs, fins and ferocity of all kinds!
15.30 Poetry Space – Jade Anouka
Jade Anouka reading from her pamphlet collection Eggs on Toast published by Poetry Space in January 2016. Jade is a performance poet and actor. “Jade’s beautiful poetry is no frills. Brave, raw and exposing, Jade’s writing is an open book where the words are carefully plucked pearls, fit for the neck of any human just growing, falling and making their way in the world.” - Poet/Author Laura Dockrill
16.00 Stonewood Press
Traverse Poetry Trading Cards
with Kathryn Maris, Jacqueline Gabbitas, Anna Robinson, Pippa Hennessy and Wayne
Burrows
Put a poet in your pocket! Stonewood Press is launching a brand new poetry project called Traverse Poetry Trading Cards. Come along to our launch event to hear great poetry, pick up one of our giveaways and for a chance to buy these super collectable cards hot off the press. Our readers include Kathryn Maris, Jacqueline Gabbitas, Anna Robinson, Pippa Hennessy and Wayne Burrows. And we have a Special Limited Edition card exclusive to Free Verse.
THE SQUARE PIG & PEN
30-32 Procter Street, Holborn, London WC1V 6NX
17.00 Competition Winners
To be announced! The winners of this year’s Poetry Book Fair competition will read their poems, as well as a few other poems of their own. Come and make them feel welcome!
17.30 The Rialto
Richard Scott, Kate Wakeling, Laura Scott
The Rialto Pamphlet Poets: Richard Scott reads from Wound, Kate Wakeling reads from The Rainbow Faults and Laura Scott reads from What I Saw.
18.00 CB editions
Julian Stannard, Patrick Mackie
Julian Stannard reads from What were you thinking? and Patrick Mackie reads from The Further Adventures Of The Lives Of The Saints.
18.30 Telltale Press
Sarah Barnsley, Siegfried Baber, Jess Mookherjee, Peter Kenny, Robin Houghton
New poetry from the Sussex-based Telltale Press.
19.00 Eyewear Publishing
James Flynn, Kimberly Campanello, Ken Evans, Elizabeth Parker
Eyewear celebrates its stylish 2016 Aviator series of pamphlets with brief readings by 4 poets: James Flynn, Kimberly Campanello, Ken Evans, and Elizabeth Parker.
19.30 smith | doorstop
Nigel Pantling
Nigel Pantling published his debut poetry collection, Kingdom Power Glory, with smith|doorstop Books in May 2016. He was a soldier in Northern Ireland during the early years of ‘The Troubles’, private secretary to Ministers in the Home Office during the most turbulent year of the Thatcher Government, and a merchant banker in the 90’s when privatisations and mergers and acquisitions were rampant. The collection draws on his extraordinary working life and the danger, the absurdity and the human frailty that he has seen at first hand.
20.00 Carcanet
Karen McCarthy Woolf, Martina Evans, John Clegg
Readings from three Carcanet poets. Poet and Editor Karen McCarthy Woolf, born in London to an English mother and a Jamaican father, reads from An Aviary of Small Birds. London-based poet and novellist Martina Evans, who grew up in County Cork, reads from The Windows of Graceland. John Clegg, who grew up in Cambridge and currently works as a bookseller at the London Review of Books bookshop, reads from Holy Toledo!
20.30 Penned in the Margins
Melissa Lee-Houghton, Charlotte Newman
Next Generation Poet Melissa Lee-Houghton will read from her searing new collection Sunshine. Young experimental poet Charlotte Newman introduces her debut collection Trammel.