News and blogs from Arc Publications http://www.arcpublications.co.uk Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:12:55 GMT Sun, 14 Oct 2007 09:00:00 GMTArc's Ewa Lipska and Tomas Salamun were among the poets commissioned by The New York Times to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. » www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/08/opinion/08berlinpoems.htmlhttp://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=24http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=24Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:17:32 GMTThere's a good, illuminating interview with Larissa Miller by Ruth O'Callaghan on Larissa Miller's website. www.larisamiller.ru/introc.htmlhttp://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=23http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=23Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:32:03 GMThttp://www.arcpublications.co.uk/blog.htm?blog_id=10http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/blog.htm?blog_id=10Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:27:52 GMTOn 11 August Ian Pople visited Canada to read at Art Bar Poetry in Toronto. » Ian Pople – August 11, 2009, at Art Bar Poetryhttp://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=22http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=22Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:29:30 GMTTo celebrate the 80th birthday of Remco Campert, his Dutch publishers arranged a party where many well known poets and authors read specially written pieces before a very distinguished audience. The event concluded with Campert reading two of his own poems. http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=21http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=21Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:03:14 GMTBrian Johnstone, whose The Book of Belongings was published by Arc in August, is September's Poet of the Month on the Scottish Poetry Library website. http://www.spl.org.ukhttp://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=19http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=19Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:17:37 GMTArc Publications has been sad to learn of the death of James Kirkup, co-translator of 'We of Zipangu', on 10th May 2009. » www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/16/obituaryhttp://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=18http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=18Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:02:21 GMTWe've just come back from what we think is one of the best of the UK poetry festivals – but not before losing a battle with Worldbridge, the private company which now handles visa applications for the British Government.http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/blog.htm?blog_id=3http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/blog.htm?blog_id=3Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:44:20 GMTThere's an audio clip of Remco Campert reading the poem 'Lament', from I Dreamed in the Cities at Night, on the Netherlands Poetry International Web site. http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=16http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=16Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:37:42 GMTReminder: The closing date for entries in the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2009 (judged by Ruth Padel) is 24 April 2009. For full details of the competition, visit www.mslexia.co.uk.http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=13http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=13Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:46:08 GMTCongratulations to Arc's UK/Ireland Editor, John Clarke, who has been shortlisted in the 2009 Strokestown Poetry Competition. He and the other short-listed poets are invited to read a selection of their work at the Strokestown International Poetry Festival, which takes place over the week-end of 1st-3rd May 2009 at Strokestown, Co. Roscommon, Ireland. Prize-winners will be announced at the Festival.http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=12http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=12Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:50:56 GMTMidnight and its author Mourid Barghouti are deservedly getting plenty of attention... * Boyd Tonkin in The Independent, * Natalie Whittle in The Financial Times * 'A Life in Writing', profile of Mourid Barghouti in The Guardian You can find all three reviews here Listen to an interview with Mourid Barghouti for the BBC World Service. http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=10http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=10Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:16:29 GMTRegina Derieva's first volume of poems to be published in England, 'The Sum Total of Violations' will be launched in Sweden on Friday, February 6th at St. Eugenia's reading hall situated at Kungsträdgarden 12 in central Stockholm. St. Eugenia, founded in 1837, is Sweden's oldest and largest Catholic parish founded after the protestant reformation. Les Murray, Per Wästberg and Eva Lipska are among the poets who have given public talks or readings in this prestigious venue. Regina Derieva is one of the leading contemporary Russian poets. Unusually she has strong affiliations with Swedish culture and with that of the Middle East, Israel and Palestine. Since she does not fit any particular category, her work is not perhaps as well known outside Russian as it ought to be, although it has received commendations from a number of prominent authors including the late Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky and the contemporary Australian poet, Les Murray, who writes: "Science teaches that eighty percent of the universe consists of dark matter, so called. Regina Derieva learned this same fact in a very hard school. She does not consent to it, though. She knows that the hurt truth in us points to a dimension where, for example, victory is cleansed of battle. Her strict, economical poems never waver from that orientation." 'The Sum Total of Violations' is a bilingual (Russian) edition translated by Daniel Weissbort.http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=9http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=9Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:38:49 GMTArc Publications gained a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Guests of Eternity, the translation by Richard McKane of one of Russia's most highly regarded writers Larissa Miller. The book is introduced by Sasha Dugdale. After a very brief visit to England she is due back in the autumn to give readings and to introduce the book to a wider audience in its original language as well as in English.http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=8http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=8Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:05:04 GMTArc has signed up the hugely influential Lithuanian poet Marcelijus Martinaitis with his work, the classic, 'The Ballads of Kukutis', translated by Laima Sruoginis. The Kukutis poems – the main character personified by a "wise fool" – always outmanoeuvred the government censors in Lithuania and was always in print during the final decades of communist rule, becoming a symbol of rebellion and hope against the forces of state oppression. The poems are not only a valuable historical record but again speak urgently and hilariously to a people under threat. This will be its first appearance in English.http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=7http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=7Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:39:38 GMTAn article by Lorna Thorpe – Did anxiety cause my heart attack? – appeared in last Friday's Guardian. Since her mid-20s, Lorna Thorpe has suffered crippling panic attacks. Now, after a cardiac arrest at 50, she lives in fear that her worrying could kill her. As well as re-visiting this life-shattering experience in the her article, she has written about it in a sequence of poems in her first full-length collection, A Ghost in My House, published by Arc earlier this year. Read - My body is a temple Cardiac arrest Miracle This old heart of mine Mirror in the bathroom Haemorrhage Bruisehttp://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=6http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=6Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:11:00 GMT There's an excellent profile of Mourid Barghouti, whose Midnight and Other Poems has recently been published by Arc, in today's Guardian. "...you have to strike a balance, not sacrificing the aesthetics for your readership. I hate the terms 'resistance poetry' or 'exile poetry'. We're not one-theme poets. A moment of joy or misery is juxtaposed by its opposite. There's no one face; I see both." » Read the full articlehttp://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=5http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=5Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:24:11 GMTIt is with great regret that we announce the death of the poet Jacqueline Brown on Thursday 11 September 2008 after a long illness that had kept her in hospital since January of this year. Arc was fortunate enough to publish four books by Jackie, the first of which was her debut collection Accidental Reality in 1989. Then, in 1992, came the sequence Thinking Egg which won first prize in the Arvon / Observer International Poetry Competition. Four years later, in 1996, her third collection, In a Woman's Likeness was awarded a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and in 2002, her fourth (and, as it transpired, her final) collection Fractured Flights was published. It was launched at the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival in summer 2002. Jackie Brown was born in 1944 in Sheffield and lived in West Yorkshire until she left to read French and English at Newcastle University. She spent most of her adult life in education — mainstream, Adult Education and Special Education, as well as a couple of years in Greece teaching English as a foreign language. She tutored on several Arvon courses at Lumb Bank and Totleigh Barton and ran a series of workshops for physically and psychologically damaged people. Jackie's poetry was delicate and compassionate, candid and direct. There is no doubt that her beautifully-crafted sequence of poems Thinking Egg made an indelible impression on all who read it and helped to promote a deeper understanding to men as well as women of what it means to be unable to conceive children — the interminable tests, the uncertainty and dashed hopes and finally the whole process of coming to terms and, ultimately, acceptance. *** Thinking Egg In the warm kitchen two women are sitting confiding failings, fears. One woman is me. ... like an egg I'm saying one minute tough enough to withstand anything, next a fingertip could crack me... The other woman is literal - she'll have no truck with metaphor No she's saying No you are not an egg You are a woman and yes, my literal friend, I guess you are right, but I'm a woman thinking egg and staggering under its weight. *** We were privileged to be Jackie's poetry publisher, and we add our voices to the many that express sadness at her passing. Tony Ward Angela Jarman http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=4http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=4Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT"I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanise, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe. But now I think that poetry changes only the poet." This time he was wrong. This man's poetry has changed the language of Arabic writing and shifted readers' conceptions of resistance poetry. The drums receded to give way to the harp and the flute. Single-coloured khaki poems full of slogans gave way to rainbow-intertwined shades. Even the physical image of the victimised and the oppressed had to give way to Mahmoud's unmatched elegance in dress and in daily conversation alike. ...In this world of polluted international political language, where the word 'freedom' is abused in every manner, referring to everything from capitalism to the occupation of Iraq, Mahmoud's poetry and life were an attempt to give it back its meaning. – Mourid Baghouti writing in The Guardian; *** We were deeply saddened and affected to learn of the death of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish on 9 August 2008. His friend and fellow poet, Mourid Baghouti, attended his funeral in Ramallah and his account of this, and of what Darwish meant to the Arab world and the world at large, appeared in The Guardian on 16 August 2008. » Read Mourid Baghouti's article in full. Mourid Baghouti's first collection of poems to be published in the UK, Midnight and Other Poems, will appear in a bilingual edition from Arc Publications in October 2008http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=3http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=3Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMTThe outstanding contribution that http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=1http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=1Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMTWe are delighted to announce that John Clarke, the Director of the Beverley Literature Festival, has agreed to become Arc's new UK & Ireland Editor. John began working as Associate Editor with Arc in 2006 while Jo Shapcott was still Arc's UK Editor, and after she stepped down in 2007 proved to be such an asset to Arc in the interregnum that, in June this year, it was decided to offer him the Editorship. John was born in Cornwall in 1969 and trained as an actor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He then went on to study at the University of York and completed his doctoral research on 'Objectivist' poetry in 1999. While teaching American Literature part-time at York, he began to work in museums and galleries as an education officer and workshop leader. He then researched and directed a multi-disciplinary play that toured the UK through the Arts Council touring programme. In 2001 he became the first reader in residence at the Ilkley Literature Festival and subsequently took over the directorship of Wordquake, the East Riding of Yorkshire's literature development organisation. In 2002 he established the Beverley Literature Festival and in recognition of the importance of work done by Wordquake, the organisation was granted Regularly Funded Status by Art Council, England. John now works part-time for Wordquake and tutors in poetry on the part-time creative writing degree course at the University of Hull. John Clarke is also a poet, widely published in magazines and winner of the First Prize in the City of Nottingham Poetry Competition in 2007 and a runner-up in 2006 and 2008 in the Wigtown Poetry Competition. A selection of his poems will be included in the forthcoming Oxford Poets anthology.http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=2http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/news.htm?news_id=2Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT