Our
open call for poetry and prose pamphlet submissions ends this Sunday (13th December) and I've been thinking about what I can do to help people who are still deciding what to send us. I've already written about
what we do when we process submissions, so I thought it might be useful to look at submissions from another angle and explain why I chose to publish all the pamphlets we've put out already.
You can read Part 1
here, and all the pamphlets are available to
buy in our webshop (pamphlets make great Christmas presents and stocking fillers!).
* * *
Malkin, by Camille Ralphs (£5.00)
Series: The Emma Press Picks
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| Malkin, by Camille Ralphs |
Why: Last year I hadn't worked out how to tether my netbook to my phone to access the internet, so I just downloaded all the Word docs and read them on my many train journeys, only matching them up to their covering letters later. Consequently, I was a little flummoxed by both the premise and language of
Malkin: the poems take the form of monologues from those accused in the Pendle witch trials of 1612, and Camille uses unorthodox spelling for various reasons but partly to immerse the reader in the atmosphere of the period. But even though I didn't know who was speaking and why the spelling was as it was, I still had a powerful response to the visceral poems and knew I loved them.
Favourite lines: 'And after, well fed-up but famished, I knashed at th bare bakside
of an apl csh csh - -/
nd an appl &
another apple – and felt non the better for it, only old.'
AWOL, by John Fuller and Andrew Wynn Owen, illustrated by Emma Wright (£10.00)
Series: Art Squares
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| AWOL, by John Fuller and Andrew Wynn Owen |
Why: One of my poetry bugbears is poems that don't seem to be written with any reader in mind. I don't need that reader to be me, but in the poems I publish I like to have a sense that a poem has been written with an audience in mind; that the poet wants to share something with a reader. I was drawn to the poems in
AWOL because I can't get enough of both poets' joy in form and language, but also because they are letter-poems, written from a poet in his late seventies to a poet in his early twenties. I like the way John and Andrew's different perspectives on life sit together in the book, and I find the tenderness and mutual respect throughout very touching.
Favourite lines: 'We want, not days strung out like beads,
But the whole present in our hands,
Constant, as the past recedes.
We’ve had enough of wonderlands:
We want our share of wonder now.
Who cares if no one understands?'
Series: The Emma Press Pamphlets
 |
| True Tales of the Countryside |
Why: I think a good word to describe Deborah Alma’s poems might be ‘indomitable’. She writes about insecurity, fear and self-doubt, as well as sex, the countryside and ageing, but the underlying theme is strength. I love the directness of the emotions in
True Tales of the Countryside, and reading the manuscript for the first time felt exhilarating. Little details from everyday life and love leapt out at me, perfectly observed and sometimes horribly familiar: the graffiti on the bus shelter, the sticky closeness of nature, the squashing down and clawing back of self in an abusive relationship. I thought
True Tales would resonate with and give strength to a lot of readers.
Favourite lines: 'I am a mother, a field, a house.
Without me, windows darken,
no-one else knows how to put on lights
just to bring the house to life.'
Series: Art Squares
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| If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women |
Why: This is the book which launched the Art Squares! Jacqueline’s sequence of prose poems was so compellingly strange and full of rich visual details that I knew the best way to present them had to be something that gave the text room to breathe. I liked the idea of creating a kind of picture book for adults, with plenty of white space around the text and illustrations that complemented the atmosphere of the poems. As a publisher, I think a lot about how to influence and enhance the reader’s experience, and I think the format of the Art Square encourages a slower, more contemplative reading experience, which might be how I think all poetry should be read.
Favourite lines: 'When I was a child I tied my mother and father together with bandages and
put a song in their mouths. If I wound them up they sang an Afrikaans duet
in perfect thirds.'
Myrtle, by Ruth Wiggins (£6.50)
Series: The Emma Press Pamphlets
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| Myrtle, by Ruth Wiggins |
Why: This is another set of strength-giving poems, I think. There are ideas in Ruth’s poems which really stuck with me from the first read of her manuscript, and felt like a good, grown-up way of looking at life. She writes about sex and death with a mix of solemnity and mischief which I love, and which I wanted to share with other readers.
Favourite lines: 'This morning we mostly lay on the couch,
impersonating cats, talking gibberish.
This afternoon you fucked me, right out
of my pyjamas and into yours.'
Rivers Wanted, by Rachel Piercey (£6.50)
Series: The Emma Press Pamphlets
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| Rivers Wanted, by Rachel Piercey |
Why: Reading poetry can sometimes feel like a relief from being me, as I become immersed in another person’s world view. Rachel’s world view is full of sharp, disturbing observations, about animals, social interactions and courtship rituals, but I still find myself delighted whenever I read any of her poems, because they contain such unexpected ideas that I feel utterly transported.
Favourite lines: 'If you have always been
on a train between two places,
put up your feet here.
A hero has come to show you
the revelatory stoniness of stones
and how, upturned, they disclose
an adjacent magic underneath.'
