Search results for ""Author Jane Commane""

Assembly Lines asks what it means to be here and now, in post-industrial towns and cities of the heartlands that are forever on the periphery. From schools and workplaces and lives lived in 'a different town, just like this', these poems take a historical perspective on the present day from the ground upwards - whether the geological strata that underpins a 'dithering island' or the ever-moving turf under a racehorses' hooves. This is a new Midlands realism, precision-engineered, which seeks wonderment in unlikely places. By turns both fierce and tender, the poems in Jane Commane's first book-length collection re-assemble the landscape, offer up an alternative national curriculum and find ghosts and strange magic in the machinery of the everyday. Between disappearances and reformations, the natural and the man-made, the lines are drawn; you might try to leave your hometown, but it will never leave you.

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"Here is a press that genuinely revels in publishing new and exciting poetry; when I read a Nine Arches Press book I know that my mind will be a bit bigger once I've finished it. And my smile will be wider. Let the revels begin!" - Ian McMillanPoems – maps designed to get you lost, to discover magic in the everyday. Maps & Legends is a new anthology celebrating the best of Nine Arches Press over the past five years.Plotting points from urban backwaters to wild imagined spaces, editor Jo Bell guides us through those shadow places poetry inhabits, places that fall well and truly off the map.Featuring poems from Claire Crowther, David Morley , Luke Kennard, Matt Merritt, Maria Taylor, Angela France, Daniel Sluman, Alistair Noon, Tony Williams, David Hart and more.Jo Bell is the former director of National Poetry Day, and is now the UK's Canal Laureate. She has been a Glastonbury Poet in Residence, and programmed the Ledbury Poetry Festival in 2011. She has also appeared on BBC Radio 2 and 4, and at the Hay and Cheltenham Festivals. Her own poems have been commended in the Wigtown Poetry Competition and the Hippocrates International Prize.

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How to be a Poet is the brainchild of poet Jo Bell and editor Jane Commane. As a natural follow-on to the 52 Project of 2014, this book aims to help poets taking the next step in developing, working and participating in the wider creative community as a writer.How to be a Poet combines practical advice and topical mini-essays that examine both the technical and creative dimensions of being a poet. It’s a no-nonsense manual where we’ve replaced the spanners with lots of ink, elbow grease and edits. At each step, we ask plenty of questions: what makes a poem tick over perfectly, how do we get it started when it stalls, and which warning lights should you never ignore?

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In 2018, the Poetry School and Nine Arches Press launched their nationwide Primers scheme for a fourth time, in search of exciting new voices in poetry, with Kim Moore and Jane Commane as selecting editors. After reading through hundreds of anonymous entries, and narrowing down the choices from longlist to shortlist, three poets emerged as clear choices: Lewis Buxton, Amelia Loulli and Victoria Richards. Primers: Volume Four now collects together a showcase from each of the three new poets It is an irresistible invitation to step out of ourselves and our bodies and drop your expectations on the dancefloor, to take the plunge on the rollercoaster-ride of grief, motherhood and new life, and to meet desire in all its outrageous, dazzling and joyous forms. Secrets, disclosures, changed names and brilliant disguises make for a vivid, adventurous and often deeply moving selection of new work from some of poetry’s most talented emerging voices.Praise for Primers: Volume Four“All three poets are rooted in the territory of the body and the expectations placed on it by society though their concerns range widely – from an examination of toxic masculinity to female desire and motherhood. Their approach to language and form is varied, but what is consistent is their ability as poets to invite the reader to see the world in a different way.” – Kim Moore

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In 2019, Nine Arches Press launched their nationwide Primers scheme for a fifth time, in search of exciting new voices in poetry, with Jacqueline Saphra and Jane Commane as selecting editors. After reading through hundreds of anonymous entries, and narrowing down the choices from longlist to shortlist, three poets emerged as clear choices: Krystelle Bamford, Claire Cox and Hannah Jane Walker.Primers Volume Five brings together a showcase from each of the three poets. At the core of these poems are the milestones and critical moments of our lives and, vitally, the ties that bind us to those we love. From the tides of grief to surfing the wave of birth, these often courageous and candid poems are distinctive in their engagement with fear, loss and self-discovery, and how they emerge afresh, bold and illuminating. An insightful collection of new work from some of poetry’s most talented emerging voices.“Each of these poets moved us from a very first read with courage, openness and authenticity and each walks an exhilarating edge, daring to take risks with both language and content.” – Jacqueline Saphra

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In 2021, Nine Arches Press launched their nationwide Primers scheme for a sixth time, in search of exciting new voices in poetry, with Rishi Dastidar and Jane Commane as selecting editors. After reading through hundreds of anonymous entries, and narrowing down the choices from longlist to shortlist, three poets emerged as clear choices: Kym Deyn, Estelle Price and Fathima Zahra.Primers: Volume Six now brings together a showcase from each of the three poets. Startling, original and packed with flair, Deyn, Price and Zahra explore everything from magic and mourning, cross-examinations of power and patriarchy, and the intimate secrets and ‘Parent cuts’ of growing up. These are poems of becoming and being, of difference and defiance, of other worlds, hard lessons and leaps of faith. Primers is proud to present these bold and dynamic poems from three of contemporary poetry’s most exciting new voices.Praise for Primers: Volume Six“There is of course nothing more exciting in reading poetry than finding a voice new to you, and feeling that feeling – where the brain says ‘oh hello, what have we here?’, as the skin responds with a tingle and your face starts smiling as you realise, there is something special in these words. That, roughly described, was our initial sensation on seeing the work of Kym Deyn, Estelle Price and Fathima Zahra. Each, in their unique ways, have that uncanny ability to recast what you thought you knew, as they make you look then look again at who we are, how we live, and what we might be.” – Rishi Dastidar

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