WWW.MODERNPOETRY.ORG.UK: 
New Readers Start Here!
Websites Useful for Understanding Avant-Garde British Poetry
Anthologies, Literary Histories & Critical Texts
Poetry And Me: A Writing Biography
Quick Links to British Avant-Garde Poetry Sites
Readings in London
Links to British Avant-Garde Poetry Siteslist of lists: foci of information
British & Irish online magazines and e-publishers
online magazines and e-publishers with British & Irish writing
writers' homepages and blogs
audio and video sites
print publishers and magazines
readings &c
bookshops and booksellers
This list is taken from the very full international listing on the Great Works Links page, with the entries re-edited. That listing last completely updated April 11-12, 2007 (+ a few additions, June 18-23). Yes, I ought to make a major effort to keep it more current.
is an online and print collection of recordings, printed texts and manuscripts, focused on innovative contemporary poetry being written or performed in Britain. It is hosted by Queen Mary College, London. At present, the Archive consists of readings by nearly 100 mainly UK-based poets. It is a very necessary place to visit, a truly massive resource. Well done, Andrea! I cannot praise this site highly enough.
The website for Beat Scene magazine has a lot of information on books, news, and pix of the beat writers, from whose mighty loins we are all sprung.
"Discussion and news list for practitioners and readers of current poetry and poetics, with emphasis on recent postmodern and innovative poetries in Britain and Ireland." Centred more on discussion of writing than posted writing. Link is for archive. Open access: you can apply to join (from the page linked to — but check archive first to make sure it is your sort of place!)
This site, a joint venture of the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre in the School of English and Humanities at Birkbeck College, the Poetic Practice Group at Royal Holloway College, and the Department of English, University of Southampton, is a reference guide to the work of contemporary British poets "from the parallel tradition". Parallel? Hmmm. Launched in May 2002, it plans to provide information on poets and their publications, and with audio files coming to accompany examples of their work. 35 parallel traditional poets so far. There is now a number of readings added as .msv files.
This is a thorough and wide-ranging listing, that gives access to a wealth of worthwhile sites. It helped inspire the greatworks.org.uk website.
at Birkbeck College "is a forum for the study and performance of contemporary poetries, and research into their historical, political and theoretical contexts". They host poetry readings, performances, workshops, exchanges, seminars, lectures, and conferences, run two web journals and have developed a publishing venture, Veer Books, and are committed to fostering the whole range of poetic practice, including sound, visual, and digital poetry, with particular emphasis upon work that is innovative in its materials and forms. Will Rowe and Carol Watts are the good people responsible for all this.
is an internet listing opportunity open to little presses of the U.K., mainly print material. Inaugurated by Bill Griffiths, Bob Trubshaw, and Peter Finch, in March 2000. Now with involvement of Peter Manson. A wide range of little presses (including Dreadful Work Press, Psychic Tymes and Kropotkin's Lighthouse), but with a very good listing of recently published poetry, with snippets and how to get hold of it.
is a vast and exhaustive listing of Internet sites relevant to poetry and literature (with a UK bias). It is very thorough, uptodate & wide-ranging, with a huge range of resources. A noble and useful work!
An ambitious new site: " the free online poetry project that gives you the chance to explore new and different areas of what we now call 'poetry'. Although the Systems is based in London we have contributors from all over Britain, who share our passion for innovation and experimentation in poetry. Help us introduce poetry back into London life by submitting poems to us in all media forms." Includes page and digital texts, podcasts, essays and a forum. The only names I recognise are James Wilkes and Hannah Silva. If this builds up it could well be a vital centre.
Peter Howard's site of poems and poetry resources has a real wealth of material, in particular a careful selection of what are claimed as the best poetry websites, and includes The Cambridge Poetry Page, a listing of readings in Cambridge.
A forum for anonymous reviews, edited by Keston Sutherland and jUStin!katKO. Disappointingly sparse for a potentially good idea.
Tom Chivers' brandname, now attached to an organisation that publishes, arranges events and projects, even manages artists (including Chris McCabe). This could be the start of something big; but I'm not sure the percentages will work out.
"a taster of contemporary poetry in Britain and Ireland", is solidly based in the commercial mainstream, but with odd flashes of interest. There are quite active discussion boards with some familiar avant-garde names present on them.
"Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics, promoting specific projects for internet and print publication, and providing a forum for you to debate your own critical and creative work." Much original writing posted as well as discussion of writing. Link is for archive. Open access: you can apply to join (from the page linked to — but check archive first to make sure it is your sort of place!)
This is an Amsterdam-based attempt at setting up a worldwide poetry site, using national subsites, which at present range from Australia to Zimbabwe, and in between. The United Kingdom material includes now Alan Halsey, Denise Riley, Elisabeth Bletsoe, Frances Presley, Lee Harwood, Penelope Shuttle, Peter Riley, Richard Price and Vahni Capildeo, with introductions, bibliographies, links etc, and some general links to British poetry-related websites. The range of poets featured is now getting perhaps genuinely representative.
is the national public library devoted to poetry on the South Bank. There are a lot of information and many links on its website.
gives access, with search facility, to some back issues from a range of UK magazines, eg Angel Exhaust; 10th Muse; Ambit; Fire; Oasis; Painted, spoken; Poetry Nation; Shearsman; The Interpreter's House; The London Magazine. From the Poetry Library's archives.
This is an interesting site, which gives a space and webpresence to a large number of contemporary British poets. These include Chris Gutkind, Chris Hardy, André Mangeot, David Miller, Sharon Morris, Christopher North and Stephen Watts.
Peter Manson has handily compiled this as a specialised Google search engine focusing on 70 poetry websites, mainly focusing on innovative poetry, and with a British bias.
This is the very useful News section of the Salt website, with an email list — small at present, but well worth encouraging to become a focus for information.
has an engaging site, with yearly lists of the best Scottish poems, an interactive map with contemporary poems on places, and a bookshop.
is a great institution listing magazines, print & online, across world (though mainly US based).
are a fascinating and informative listing of poetry on CD and Cassette by David Kennedy, part of Cortland Review: An Online Literary Magazine in RealAudio.
lists a number of writers and artists, with full details, examples of work etc. Figures of interest include David Miller, Ruth Fainlight, Judith Kazantzis and George Szirtes.
"is devoted entirely to poetry and poetics. It publishes non-mainstream poetry, and features essays and interviews related to it. By non-mainstream, I mean poetry that is aware of the plasticity of language and which places connotation and ambiguity over denotation and precision of meaning. This sort of poetry invites interpretation and allows for plurality of meaning as opposed to hermeneutic closure." I can't agree with all of editor Jeffrey Side's credo — I'd aim for some impossible combination of precision and ambiguity — but it's a brave nailing of colours to the mast for an heroic e-zine which contains a very wide range of poets (eg Rupert Loydell, Geoff Stevens, Peter Riley, Allen Fisher, Chris McCabe, John Seed, Peter Finch, Mairéad Byrne), an equally wide range of articles and interviews, and a huge list of links. Just up is a fascinating series of interviews with songwriters on songwriting and poetryIt is a wonderful site, full of promise — only flaws that it's white on black, and material is very unordered. Otherwise, near perfection in its inclusiveness. Jeffrey Side also has a blog, with interesting comments on the poetry cultural scene in Britain.
elegantly designed magazine edited by David Bircumshaw, current issue featuring poetry by Tim Allen, Peter Riley, Pierre Joris, special feature on German language poetry (with essay by Andrew Duncan), translation from the Dutch by Andrew Duncan & Karlien van den Breulen, and some of a very complex text from David Bircumshaw. Also on the site are two collections of poems by David Bircumshaw: Parousia and Painting Without Numbers. The whole ensemble comprises Spectare's Web — a remarkable monument!
CreatureMaG: something created is a quirkily produced ezine, heavily visual and music/art-oriented, with indeed, amusing and creative material flowing off the screen. A past issue includes a little poetry anthology edited by Tom Chivers, with poems by Gavin Selerie and Richard Makin.
contains a wide range of reviews of films, texts, TV drama, plus audio/multimedia work by Paul A Green, Lawrence Russell and others. A whole complex cultural nexus is laid out. The account of the Poetry Buzz for Allen Fisher is wonderful, as is Brother Paul's review essay on Iain Sinclair's anthology London: City of Disappearances.
is a complex series of hypertext poems by Anne Berkeley, Peter Howard and André Mangeot, written in response to an exhibition on city life at Kettle's Yard Gallery in Cambridge (and to Cambridge itself). It is a powerful and engaging construction. More of these writers' work can be found on the website of the group they belong to, The Joy of Six.
is a poetry e-zine publishing a range of good poets. The most recent issue consists of a series of pdfs of beautiful little chapbooks, by such as David Berridge and Giles Goodland. A Dusie Isles Reader, is an excellent online anthology of current British & some Irish writing, including David Annwn. Tim Atkins, Tina Bass, Caroline Bergvall, David Berridge, Anne Blonstein, Andrea Brady, Mairéad Byrne, David Caddy, Vahni Capildeo, Emily Critchley, James Cummins, James Davies, Andrew Duncan. Carrie Etter, Allen Fisher, Melissa Flores, Amelia Gilmore, Giles Goodland, Mark Goodwin, Alan Halsey, Robert Hampson, Edmund Hardy, Peter Hughes, Sarah Jacob, Susan Johanknecht, Luke Kennard, Christine Kennedy, David Kennedy, Ira Lightman, Rupert Loydell, Geraldine Monk, Marianne Morris, Redell Olsen, Peter Philpott, Ernesto Priego, Tom Raworth, Peter Riley, Sophie Robinson, Gavin Selerie, Jeffrey Side, Zoë Skoulding, Martin Stannard, Rob Stanton, Laura Steele, Sandra Tappenden, Scott Thurston, Anna Ticehurst, Simon Turner, Steven Waling, Carol Watts. Basically — the best online anthology of contempory British poetry.
is a very fine US based ezine, with a very inclusive policy, whose final issue has now been published. Issue 6 includes 13 British Poets ("In memory of Richard Caddel: 1949-2003"): Caroline Bergvall, Richard Caddel, Martin Corless-Smith, Allen Fisher, Bill Griffiths, Alan Halsey, Elizabeth James, Christopher Logue, Geraldine Monk, Frances Presley, Christopher Reid, Peter Riley, & Harriet Tarlo.
"seeks to publish works of excellence and assumes that excellence is always the offspring of experimentation." Look at the back issue containing a big West House Anthology, with authors from Thomas Lovell Beddoes to Peter Riley, via Ric Caddel, Kelvin Corcoran, Johan de Wit and West House Books publisher Alan Halsey himself. American site.
"exploring non-traditional directions in poetry and scholarship by women", is full of excellent material, including in the current issue whole masses of poems, papers & unclassifiable material on performance, ecology and poetics, poets on mentorship, and Barbara Guest, with writing from among others Frances Presley, Ann Waldman, Tina Darragh and Marcella Durand, Rachel Blau DuPlessis and carol Watts. In the stupendous archives, poems and papers from the Cambridge Experimental Women's Poetry Festival (October 2006), Pantoume by Kai Fierle-Hedrick and Marianne Morris (image & text), a feature on Archive of the Now, including a valuable interview with Andrea Brady (and video of Andrea reading Wildfire), "quickflip: a HOW2 e-chap" (lots of good writing!) compiled and edited by Frances Kruk, who has also curated "Welcoming Space: Susana Gardner and Dusie Books". The archives are equally rich. This site hosts a tremendously exciting range of writing and talking/thinking about writing. It is exemplary.
"exploring non-traditional directions in poetry and scholarship by women", is full of excellent material, including in the current issue whole masses of poems, papers & unclassifiable material on performance, ecology and poetics, poets on mentorship, with writing from among others Frances Presley and carol Watts. In the stupendous archives, poems and papers from the Cambridge Experimental Women's Poetry Festival (October 2006), Pantoume by Kai Fierle-Hedrick and Marianne Morris (image & text), a feature on Archive of the Now, including a valuable interview with Andrea Brady (and video of Andrea reading Wildfire), "quickflip: a HOW2 e-chap" (lots of good writing!) compiled and edited by Frances Kruk, who has also curated "Welcoming Space: Susana Gardner and Dusie Books", and coordinated by Redell Olsen, London Calling: New and Emerging Work from Britain, with Rosheen Brennan, Emily Critchley, Kai Fierle-Hedrick, Kristen Kreider, Frances Kruk, Marianne Morris, Sophie Robinson & Lydia White). The archives are equally rich. This site hosts a tremendously exciting range of writing and talking/thinking about writing. It is exemplary.
contains poems, and very interestingly, records of workshop discussions on these. by members of the Poetry Workshop: Cahal Dallat, Jane Draycott, Hugh Epstein, Christopher Hedley-Dent, Elizabeth James, Duncan McGibbon, Leona Esther Medlin, Kim Morrissey, Richard Price, and Sudeep Sen. A very well designed site, which gives a great deal of context for these poets' work.
"This will hopefully be a blogzine co-op, a self-editing poetry & poetics magazine with no single perspective, no single set of interests." It is curated and largely edited by Edmund Hardy, with as contributors virtually everyone with something interesting to say about contemporary British poetry, on a varied range of topics. From strength to strength! – now with some excellent ebooks also, including Dilemmatic boundaries: constructing a poetics of thinking, an essay by Emily Critchley, Joshua Stanley, Litany, Berlioz, a poem by Peter Hughes. and John Harington's 1591 translation of Orlando Furioso. There are important gatherings of responses by a variety or people, mainly poets, to the work of Doug Oliver, Peter Riley and Sean Rafferty also. It seems, finally, to be in process of renaming itself "The Yellow Spot". Vital!
is a rather over-designed e-zine (sorry! but the texts are all so constrained in little boxes; keep it simple and readable, please!), with a very wide range of writers, with a very wide range of writers, including Anne Stevenson, Lee Harwood, John Hegley, Bill Griffiths, Ira Lightman and others in back issues. A recent issue was dedicated to Bill Griffiths
is a superb and huge online magazine from Australia. The current issue includes Rebecca A Smith, "Barry MacSweeney and the Bunting Influence: 'A key figure in his literary universe'?", poems by Rachel Blau DuPlessis and Amy King, interviews with Peter Riley (very rewarding!) and Roy Fisher, and a whole lot else. Amongst the huge archive, recommended are Laurie Duggan, On Gael Turnbull’s Collected Poems: with a digression on his aleatory, kinetic and other off-the-page practices, plus Post-Marginal Positions: Women and the UK Experimental/Avant-Garde Poetry Community: A Cross-Atlantic Forum, moderated by Catherine Wagner, and including contributions from Andrea Brady, Geraldine Monk and Jow Lindsay. And there is the poetry, of course (try Laurie Duggan, Two poems from ‘The skies over Thanet’). If you are interested in looking at some of the antecedents of the British writing on Great Works, I would also refer you to Issue 20, on Cambridge, with vast amounts of material on Veronica Forrest-Thompson and Hugh Sykes Davies, Andrew Duncan on A Various Art and "the Cambridge Leisure Centre" (and on Trevor Joyce), Rod Mengham on Bourgeois News: Humphrey Jennings and Charles Madge, material from Quid and Parataxis magazines, a large amount of material on and from Perfect Bound magazine (including a long interview with Peter Robinson), and poems from Bob Cobbing and Robert Sheppard, Robert Hampson, Tony Lopez, David Marriott, Drew Milne, and Peter Robinson; there is an informative if slightly pointed review by Robert Sheppard of Poetry Wars: British Poetry of the 1970s and the Battle of Earls Court by Peter Barry, detailing the nakba of avant-garde British poetry; or more positively John Welch's memoir Getting it Printed: London in the 1970s. On the other hand, you can discover the joys of flarf in the Jacket Flarf feature.
run by David Miller, publishes small publications from a very wide range of writers, with material from most on the site. Writers include Jeff Hilson, Paul Buck, David Menzies, David Miller, Robert Lax, Alyson Torns, Giles Goodland and Johan de Wit.
Co-edited by Andrew Nightingale has the previous issues on the Web, but current issue available in print, with Giles Goodland, David Berridge, Mark Goodwin, Peter Hughes and Peter Philpott in this.
is the e-zine of Leafe Press, who publish booklets by Kelvin Corcoran, Alan Baker, Tilla Brading, Lee Harwood, Peter Dent, Martin Stannard, with poems online. Litter has masses of good stuff, work from, among others, Mark Goodwin, Tilla Brading, Lee Harwood's essay My Heart Belongs to Dada, Christine Kennedy and David Kennedy's Intelligence Report — Evidence of the Enemy, Gavin Selerie (poems from Le Fanu's Ghost), Fances Presley (poems from the sequence Myne), big Peter Dent and Martin Stannard features, Kelvin Corcoran, Rupert Loydell and Alan Halsey.
's current issue is Poetry etc: Poems and Poets — an anthology edited by Andrew Burke and Candice Ward of writing from mmbers of this well-established poetry listserv, with an interesting historical introduction by Alison. The range of contributors is very wide: John Kinsella (the list's founder), David Bircumshaw, Randolph Healy, lots and lots, and the whole shebang is downloadable as a pdf. An interesting back issue contains a Feature on Irish Poetry, with, among others, Mairéad Byrne, Brian Coffey, Trevor Joyce, Medbh McGuckian, Maggie O'Sullivan, Maurice Scully, and Catherine Walsh. Masthead's editor, Alison Croggon, has also a varied & interesting personal website with links to her own very varied writing. Australian site.
This issue of an absolutely vital magazine: "Our contributors explore the links between a global glut of financial liquidity and the capitalist self-cannibalisation that sustains it. Tracing the impact of financialised and looted social existence from the micropolitics of student debt and lifelong labour, via the reign of fictitious capital, to the geopolitics of US militarism and reactionary anti-imperialism, this issue asks us to reimagine crisis as a political question with an open outcome: Are we about to pick up the tab for the financial elite's decades long free lunch? And if total monetary collapse is a way off, is this because the social crisis and repression we already face are deepening? Whose crisis is it anyway, and if it comes, who is going to come out on top?" contains poems by Andrea Brady, Keston Sutherland, John Wilkinson, William Fuller, Howard Slater, in addition to the best analysis of that state we're in, and some hints at getting out of it. Read the poems in their context – they work superbly!
contains a range of fascinating journalism, from the political to the fortean, as well as an interesting range of poetry, eg John Welch, Peter Riley, Maurice Scully, Kevin Higgins, Alexis Lykiard. You can download from the site 100 poets against the war, Poems for Lord Hutton, and other free and controversial collections of topical poems.
"a spring-fresh interview zine dedicated to showcasing poets who deserve to be better heard and read" run by Kevin Doran and Matina L. Stamatakis, starting with Sean Fitzpatrick.
edited by Tim Atkins, is a very fine-tuned e-zine, whose most recent issue includes, among others, Laurie Duggan, Allen Fisher, Alan Halsey, Jeff Hilson and John Seed — also a ferocious set of links, and good reviews.
"A blogzine of investigative, exploratory, avant-garde, innovative poetry and poetics edited by Robert Sheppard" is a superb blog now focused on answering the question "What have been the most significant developments in the alternative British and Irish Poetries (however you define those) over the last 7 years?" Its archives contain essay-length reviews, prose and poems, with work from or concerning Robert Sheppard, Iain Sinclair, John Muckle, Lee Harwood, Sheila E Murphy, Clark Allison and Bill Griffiths.
"Art For the Wise and Discerning Reader" it claims, a magazine produced by a quite large group of people from Manchester (including James Davies). The magazine is paper only – but its site has a lot of material of interest, in a series of short essays on literature (mainly poetry), art, film, performance and music. Plus a couple of other little things, like poets as South Park characters.
is also a blogzine — e-zine using blogging technology — organised by Adam Fieled and Mike Land. A lot of very interesting material and much good archive material, eg interviews with and poems by Chris McCabe and Andrew Duncan. American site.
" And yet of course you are partisan. As a reader, as an editor (who is a certain kind of reader, maybe not Ideal-ised, but certainly an attentive one), you do want certain things from the poems (and the critical reception of those poems) you come across. I am, for example, somewhat uncomfortable with cults and the status of effective unreadability they confer on their objects. I mistrust homogeneity. I've an appetite for the collisions, rather than collusions, of international writing: internationalism is one of Poetry Review's longest traditions. In a Britain where even the arts establishment can look shifty when it comes to poetry, where access to contemporary poets in libraries and on syllabuses is increasingly rationed, Poetry Review — whose readers and subscribers include not only individuals with absolute poetic commitment but those for whom it's their only contact with what's going on — has a robustly colourful role to play in presenting the best of poetry today, in cajoling poets into particular forms of writing, and in nursing contemporary poetry-critical discourse. There may be easier jobs. Few offer such peculiarly sweet rewards." Robustly colourful: my arse. The back issues of the run edited by David Herd & Robert Potts are still accessible for a wide range of interesting poems and reviews, eg poems by Keston Sutherland, and Andrea Brady on Denise Levertov. Other good stuff includes Andrew Duncan on the Keith Tuma 20th Century British and Irish Poetry anthology, and reviews of texts such as John James, Collected Poems, J H Prynne, Unanswering Rational Shore and Wendy Mulford, And Suddenly, Supposing, and poems by writers including Tony Lopez, Lee Harwood and Michael Haslam.
is the site of a very active poetry group, one of whose leading lights is Geoff Stevens, whose poems (and other details) may be found on the site.
Editor: Will Rowe. The site has been revived and remade, with current isue centered on Introduction: Poetry & Public Language, edited by Tony Lopez, as record of a seminar held at the Centre for Contemporary Poetics, Birkbeck. Much in the archives, eg poems by Frances Presley and a review by Allen Fisher of Redell Olsen's Secure Portable Space, and an essay by Alan Halsey, "An Open Letter to Will Rowe" on the current situation of poetry in England.
"is an exhibition of Text Art and Visual Poetry bringing together contributions from poets, artists and makers of works which explore the visual and cultural impact of the word, the sign, and the slogan in public space." This is its website – an interesting sequence of visual works from, among others, Sophie Robinson, John Hall, Stephen Rodefer, Alan Halsey and many more.
is a UK-based webzine, whose most recent issue includes work by Rupert M Loydell and Mark Goodwin, plus in The Repository, a series of illustrated poems that are well worth investigating, with work from Mr Loydell (including collaborations with Sheila Murphy), Andrew Nightingale, Yann Lovelock (there's a name I hadn't heard for many a long year) and others.
Editors: Piers Hugill, Aodhán McCardle, & Stephen Mooney. This contains secondary material. Now relaunched, fresh essays have been posted, including pieces on Sean Bonney's poetry. Previous issues include responses to the Forum on Women Writers, by eg Frances Presley, John Hall and the editors, plus other stuff such as Jon Clay on Geraldine Monk, Lawrence Upton on Alaric Sumner's Waves on Porthmeor Beach & Niall McDevitt on Maggie O'Sullivan. It is supported by Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, School of English & Humanities, Birkbeck College.
struck me as the most interesting site I've encountered dealing with hypertext writing, containing some fascinating work and a wealth of links out to this quite specific world of writing. The most recent issue is dedicated to the memory of Alaric Sumner. But unfortunately nothing seems to have happened to the site since I first encountered it.
catalogue (with specimens of writing) for a serious and major press whose titles include work by David Chaloner, Simon Smith, JH Prynne, Andrew Duncan, Rod Mengham, Anna Mendelssohn, Sophie Levy & Leo Mellor, John James, John Temple & John Kinsella (one of the two editors/publishers) — virtually everyone! — plus also a useful set of international poetry and poetics links. There is a very useful News section, with bulletin boards.
Ian Seed's e-zine is a very classy and constent little production, with work from a wide range of poets and some informative and engaged reviews. Most recent issue includes Alasdair Paterson, John Welch, Catherine Hales, Gareth Durasow and Giles Goodland.
including Shearsman Magazine site contains much good writing, eg Peter Hughes & Simon Marsh, Aidan Semmens, Nathan Thompson, Chris McCabe in the most recent issue online, with also many reviews by Tony Frazer (and his highly reliable and wide-ranging Recommendations for reading), and some previous issues available as .pdf files. Also on the site are a series of e-chapbooks, including Anne-Marie Albiach, Flammigère and The line . . . the loss. Ken Edwards, Chaconne, Stephen Vincent, Triggers, An Introduction to the Work of Michael Ayres, John Muckle, Firewriting, a reprint of Richard Burns, Avebury, Rupert M. Loydell, MULTIPLE EXPOSURE (Ballads of the Alone 2) and John Hall, Through the Gap, plus details of Shearsman books (including some texts), eg Peter Riley, The Dance at Mociu and Trevor Joyce with the first dream of fire they hunt the cold: A Body of Work 1966-2000. A useful and glorious site. And my publisher!
is an attractively wide-ranging little e-zine: eg, the current issue includes poems by Carrie Etter, Peter Hughes, Geraldine Monk, Carol Watts and John Welch, and an interview with Ken Edwards. An earlier interview with Andrew Duncan ("I find some Cambridge poetry utterly obscure. There is this social background of a very strict power hierarchy based on intelligence rankings set by competitive tests. The poem works as one of these tests. It does not matter if no-one understands your poem because that means you've won!") is too good not to quote from.
is Trevor Joyce's space for invention: "if the eye be sound the fish is sweet". Not at all glassy, but full of life and invention in the site, with poetry from Mairéad Byrne, Brian Coffey, Patrick Galvin, Trevor Joyce and Michael Smith, and the extraordinary collaborative poetic venture Offsets.
"Featuring poets, flash fiction writers, authors, musicians, and artists – we aim to bring you the finest in Brutalist writing from across the globe." None of the names are familiar to me, but this blogzine is pretty funky. The Brutalists seem mired in unoriginal knee-jerk jerk-off post-punk self-publicity; but straightfromthefridge is worth your detailed perusal, and gives indications of yet another nexus of would-be alternative poets (who are so hard and real!).
is linked with Stride Books publishing, and makes a tremendously effective and varied site, including work by Richard Burns, Tom Chivers and Rupert Loydell, and a very involving review of Martin Corless-Smith's Swallows. Full of good things.
edited by Kevin Doran, is a beautifully produced and very engaging blogzine devoted to short form poems (of very various types).
run by Alan Halsey and Geraldine Monk. It includes details of publications (from such as Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Sean Bonney, Kelvin Corcoran, Johan de Wit, Mercurialis the Younger, Peter Riley, Gavin Selerie, Glenn Storhaug, and their own work). Plus excerpts from Geraldine and Alan's work (including sound files and images). Plus an extensive second hand catalogue specialising in modernist poetry from small presses. This is a good place to visit.
run by Randolph Healy includes work on its website (some on RealAudio) by (among others) Randolph, Allen Fisher, Mairéad Byrne, Trevor Joyce & David Miller. There is a great range of activity going on — buzzy & professional, & superb & fascinating writing. Material also from projects based on the PoetryEtc listserv.
publish in paper, but also online, with some excellent e-books, including South Wales Echo by Gerard Casey, Christine Kennedy & David Kennedy, Ovid's Keyholes and Kelvin Corcoran, I Know the Songs of all the Birds. The site is expanding, with audio (Radio Ahadada) and a blog all in process. American site.
has a lot of interesting writing, presented very directly. You may be interested in work by Alan Halsey, Pete Smith, Ralph Hawkins, Ken Edwards, Andrew Nightingale, Drew Milne, Allen Fisher, Peter Manson, Alan Halsey, Trevor Joyce, Tony Lopez, Peter Middleton, Geraldine Monk & Laurence Upton. American site.
is a very rich source of material, including superb animations and other visual material, chapbooks and other epublications (including The White Wish by Andrea Brady). American site.
"is committed to publishing quality chapbooks by liberated poets from Anywhere. We do not discriminate against non-human or post-human artists." Human artists include Giles Goodland. All as non-copyright pdfs. American site.
"The intent of the Journal is to provide a venue for creative literary content that explores the potential of network-based creativity." There is a wide range of different ways of using the Web for multimedia and hypertext works, some banal, much haunting. The archive includes work from Lawrence Upton and Peter Howard. Not at present active site. American site.
"A magazine of poetry and everything else" is a delightful site, including much fun, and poetry from, eg, Giles Goodland, Andrew Nightingale, Simon Pettet. American site.
So many, so beautifully produced, so full of so many different names, these American websites. Ah, the land of plenty! XConnect is a good site, with some interesting material — Giles Goodland in the current issue.
"is a curatorial platform that provides the tools of a socialised internet for the development and presentation of contemporary art and literature." It's a large complex site presenting a range of material. seemingly more image-based than language-based, as flexible constellations and as work in progress. There's a tendency towards academic/artspeak jargon, but concept, execution and the work within it could point to a new way of presenting creative work on the Web. Of more immediate interest is Andrea Brady's long poem Tracking Wildfire.
Excellent writing of the highest quality, full of bite. Current issue includes Alan Halsey and John Lowther. The magazine is also printable as pdfs. Very good archives, well worth rummaging in.
is a tremendously largescale enterprise, with a whole worldwide fleet of poets and translators aboard, with already a huge corpus of worthwhile writing from merely two previous issues. Some highlights for me in the present issue are translations from Latin American modernism by Tony Frazer, some Rob Stanton. Let it continue and blossom! American site.
does what it claims, in an elegant site, whose current issue contains poems by Chris McCabe and Carrie Etter. And root around the archives, too! American site.
is a long-established Australian/Austrian literary e-zine. Current issue includes Lawrence Upton.
has a little downloadable pdf sampler of work by Ric Caddel, as teaser for the forthcoming edition of his poems by Pressed Wafer of Boston, Mass.
is a high quality American ezine, with writing from figures including Tom Raworth. American site.
publishes responses from poets to a standard range of questions. There is vast number of responses, including David Bircumshaw. American site.
contains work by mIEKAL aND, and collaborations with Elizabeth James — hypertext, pataphysics, patalinguistics: haunting, challenging and beautiful. American site.
is a writer-run centre in Vancouver, with a very exciting policy and series of activities. On their site at present are pdfs of their very thick magazine W, with work from Kevin Nolan. Other series of publications will be added. There are extensive audio files also of talks and readings, eg Tom Raworth, Denise Riley and more. Excellent stuff!
" is a web-based poetry quarterly which seeks to publish quality poetry and related articles." There is good, lively material, including Giles Goodland's essay, "Notes towards a History of The Cento". Australian site.
"Meshworks is a site dedicated to documenting and preserving video and sound recordings of writing in performance." It contains performances from a number of writers, including Sean Bonney, Tom Raworth, and Randolph Healy as Quicktime movies amd mp3s. Meshworks is on the Oxford Magazine site. That's Oxford, Ohio, home, even more confusingly to Miami University.
an online journal of poetry and poetics has a wide range of poets represented, including Andrew Nightingale, with e-books also. American site.
"A narrativity is all encompassing, but open" — a fascinating e-zine concerned with theory-based narrative — sounds bad, tastes very good. Contributors include Trevor Joyce, and Lawrence Upton. American site.
publishes poetry and prose. The most recent issue includes Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino and Christopher Barnes, who has a lot of material in issues of this ezine.
A Greek online magazine. I cannot usefully comment on the Greek material, but I know what will (or bloody well ought to!) interest Great Works readers is: "The origins and trajectories of English avant garde poetry in the last 40 years", a dialogue between Peter Riley and Spilios Argyropoulos.
Anny Ballardini's e-zine has a huge range of poets represented, with little bios, pix & links as well as poems: Douglas Clark, Lawrence Upton, Peter Philpott and Ruth Fainlight are some of the writers. Her blog NarcissusWorks provides an interesting commentary on the site. Italian site.
is a neat e-zine, an offshoot of Peek Review, a large arts and media site coming out of Baltimore. Schizotype contains work from Piers Hugill, among others.
A vast wealth of non-writing-based texts: visual, concrete, sound etc. And the downloadable e-books (including Peter Manson, Adjunct: An Undigest). And the Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter plays. This is the actual mainstream of culture: universes of language, vision and sound lie within. American site.
This is an interesting ezine produced by a collective, with roots in open source software, Totnes, and working-class culture. Intelligent and informed articles + this is now where John Muckle publishes on the Web, so lots of his excellent poems.
contains details of D M Black's poetry, reviews of his work, links to other poetry sites, and details of his publications.
(formerly Mannequin Guillotine: kevin doran doesn't exist anymore) is Kevin's quite engaging blog!
Sean Bonney's blog presents him as "Poet, collagist, polemicist, libertarian marxist, antagonist".
has a blog recently started, with an interesting and largely positive review of Great Works (bless him!)/
Not your average grime! Enjoy and take note!
Elegant, composed and radiant, like the man's poetry (well done Peter Manson – an exceptionally attractive design). No poems as yet, but biography, bibliographies, notes on poems, essays. More about and from one of Britain's finest poets.
is Michael Blackburn's own site, has all sorts of stuff on it or linked: video, photos, texts, mixed media projects, and all else, including the Sunk Island Review, a blog with "New Writing In Various Forms". Great creative energy here.
"expression not convention" — poems, music and art on Dylan Harris's homepage
is Roger Day's website, with poems, images, movies, and a link to his blog and other projects.
is Steven Waling's blog. I enjoy its at times distanced view of alternative poetry culture.
of the University of Durham gives a little information, some pix, and a little bit of text.
has a very fine and elegant personal site, with a mass of material on it.
David Caddy's blog contains long prose pieces, with poems, about his personal, literary and regional roots: "So Here We Are: Poetic Letters from England", and some very well-informed critical writing also. These are also available as audio downloads on Miporadio.
is Mike Weller's MySpace site, with images and a video. Visit it and encourage him!
contains some interesting, richly textured poems.
"My name is Bob Cobbing, I died aged 82 and was the major exponent of concrete, visual and sound poetry in Britain." Visit Bob in cyberspace! A good little biography, an mp3, and two links. But he's there!
is Ian Davidson's blog, where you are also invited to collaborate. There are also two short videos on YouTube by Ian Davidson: Harsh 15 and Harsh 30.
"the website of Michael Haslam Poet of Foster Clough" has on it a large amount of material of an Haslamic, and therefore quite fascinating and delightful, nature, including poems from this strong and original writer.
Rob Stanton's dailyish poetic poem sequence blog — this is our life. Successor to Issue.
has a neat little homepage with poems etc.
Carrie Etter's blog has some interesting comments about her relationship to the poetry culture she encounters in her present environment.
Jow Lindsay's blog contains a wide range of material, as they say. Good taste in music highly evident.
is a blog which is a readable combination of quirky invention and sound sense.
is Tina Bass's MySpace presence.
Peter Finch was leading figure of the fabled but real (like King Arthur) British Poetry Revival of the 60s and early 70s. He remains active yet in Cardiff, as a poet and cultural force. His website is excellent: poems and other writngs by Peter F, including much material on Cardiff and Wales. Some excellent writing on British and Welsh poetry, and good advice to aspring writers.
's Website has on it a wide range of material: images, lists of publications, links, and a list of Spanner publications.
is resource base for Peter Manson users and the wider poetry community (featuring Maggie Graham, Rbin Purves, Scott Thurston & Lawrence Upton, also a page with Bob Cobbing photos and links) — a model example of a poet's website (and also home to Object Permanence press).
is a damn good personal literary blog, with a wondrous Beckettian interest (and much else) — highly enjoyable — few poems, but highly poetic. Produced by one Pothwith — "This witness protection business is working a treat". Aha! he unmasks himself in his most recent issue — actually it seems a public fact all along — as David Wheatley. More power to him!
is sean burn's website, with examples of his work across art, film, play, prose and poetry — all powerful and effective.
This site, a page on Matthew Francis's homepage has on it some poems by WS Graham, one of the poets of the Forties generation now very important to the current avant-garde, after decades of relative neglect.
is Laurie Duggan's blog, from exile in furthest Kent.
A huge and staggering site: R G Gregory's life and work as a huge project of action and words.
has a very elegant site, with a few texts on it, some sound files and some links.
's MySpace presence.
's MySpace presence, with some excellent music on it.
Mike Weller's self-publishing activities
contains information on Richard Price, full lists of publications and other activities (including Vennel Press and Painted, Spoken magazine), and some poems and soundfiles. Richard also has his own MySpace presence.
John Sparrow's multimedia work upon texts, imaginative and often gloriously diverting, plus a good blog.
homepage is stylish and clear, with her writing and links. Elizabeth also has an occasional blog, Oceanographer of O.
homepage contains poems by him. That alone is a reason for visiting it.
Tom Kelly's blog has his (and others') poems, plus articles, reviews and notices about poetry and drama in the North-East
's homepage includes a large selection of essays and reviews, and a few poems.
has a companionable blog, much concerned with the interests of an English writer, translator and teacher in Italy, which I find quite fascinating, plus also what ought to interest you more, some excellent poems from this escaped member of the Cambridge School.
's wonderful website, apart from material concerning the Scottish poet, includes also an excellent page with the text of The Six O'Clock News, the poet reading it (RealPlayer or .wav formats), and relevant texts by Leonard.
Michael Blackburn on MySpace.
The website of the Scottish poet Gerry Loose, with poems online or linked.
Tony Lopez's site covers all the bases: work published and online, criticism, interviews etc listed or linked to.
This blog holds details of all Lee's published poetry: Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle has some unpublished poems and more normal bloggy stuff.
is the MySpace page of Rhys Trimble, with superb sound files of him performing (with music), plus texts on the blog. Excellent stuff! Part of a performance poetry scene at Bangor, POETica.
"by Esther Leslie and Ben Watson [aka Out To Lunch] plunges the experiencer into theory and art conspired into existence by the praxis of Walter Benjamin, T.W. Adorno, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Frank Zappa, J.H. Prynne, and every avant-garde movement from Baudelaire (but even before too — viz. Th. Nash, Sterne, Goethe. . .) through Dada, Vorticism etc onto Punk and the DIY Esemplasm)." Their cultural activities are richer than that! — also, Disney, Mad Pride, situationism, improvised music, manifestoes. Oh, and poems.
has information (detailed lists of publications), links to some essays and reviews by Drew Milne, and a couple of poems, plus details of Parataxis publications (wonderfully heavyweight modernist poetry and poetics magazine), plus work by John Wilkinson and in homage to Mina Loy.
"Mirabeau are Ian Kearey, Richard Price and Caroline Trettine, featuring Nancy Campbell." Formerly The Apollinaires. Very beautiful presentations of music and language.
is the web site dedicated to Scotland's greatest poet. There is a lot of useful information, a place where student essays can be published, and a fair number of poems.
has information and poems
Maggie O'Sullivan's site contains bibliography and thorough links to all on-line material, with a little text and voice to view and download
provides links to his poetry, translations and reviews on the internet.
has on it biographical and bibliographic information, lots of images by Nuttall, and clips of him reading his poetry, and of him playing jazz. There is a link to complete scans of his famous My Own Mag, hosted by the Burrough website, Reality Studio.
is Chris Gutkind's MySpace presence.
A text, with photos, by Ian Davidson.
's blog is intensely readable, and includes links to some excellent long poems and sequences by him, and a large series of reviews, A Brief History of Western Culture.
is Andrew Duncan's site — his criticism, his poetry, and more. Go directly to it now! If you want a large-scale view of recent & current (post-War) English poetry, and thus of Duncan's strategic position, try "Despairing dialogue: Spectral Investments: Mainstream and original poetry: proposed terms for a future dialogue". There are also back issues of Angel Exhaust, 13-16.
"a selection of fiction , poetry and drama by Paul A. Green", contains poem texts, hypertext works, soundworks, scripts, all that Brother Paul can offer us.
is Richard Barrett's blog, which gives a good picture of both the now very lively Manchester poetry scene and the state of Mark E Smith Studies.
's homepage has on it pictures and news, bibliography, and scans of Infolio magazine, and, sadly, an ever-increasing number of in memoriam pages (eg Edward Dorn, Fielding Dawson, John Wieners, Philip Whalen, Kenneth Koch, Bob Cobbing, Piero Heliczer, Stan Brakhage, Ric Caddel).
's new website has full details of publications, with some poems, biographical information, work in progress, and links to the Jacket pages on Perfect Bound magazine.
is Lydia Towsey's WordPress blog, with her writing and other interesting stuff.
contains poems, photographs, short stories and a lot of journalistic work.
John Cayley's site contains his complex work in interactive multimedia poetry (using QuickTime) — "codework": writing in networked and programmable media. There is a genuinely new linguistic and conceptual space being explored.
has a blog with mainly critical material and reviews.
's elegant site details her work, with some text present. Hannah has also a splendid MySpace presence.
Sophie Robinson's blog in totally acerbic black, pink & limegreen: exciting.
I am delighted that David Bircumshaw is back in action on the Web, with fresh material on his site.
is an astonishing game or mechanism from Peter McCarey. It is delighful (or did I say that just above? Trust my adjectives!).
is his personal site, complementary to his publishing as Sixties Press
Tom Chivers' blog
is Chris McCabe's blog.
Lawrence's MySpace presence will have to serve for the moment, with biography and bibliography, and recent postings.
is an interview based blogzine, starting with Geraldine Monk.
's blog is excellent: the combination of his own very fine writing and some very informed and perceptive commentary on the nature of poetry and the poetic line makes it very appealing. I like his run through of Charles Bernstein "Girly Man", discussing in shocked horror "the elements of normative poetics".
's blog is full of John Welch. Excellent!
is a rich source of both sound-files and poem videos. But: only the Poetry Jukebox and the iPoems Flash Poems are free – the bulk of the material needs to be paid for. There is a lot of emphasis on the more entertainment-end of performance poetry; but work also by Peter Finch, Iain Sinclair, Tom Leonard, Adrian Mitchell, Kamau Braithwaite, Christopher Logue (and a fine essay by Peter Finch on Sound Poetry).
was a show on New York based WPS1 Art Radio, which broadcast archive and live readings. Lee Harwood is one of the names you will encounter. And more here, on updated Art Radio site archive.
"FREE IMPROVISATION / MUSIQUE CONCRETE / DISASTROUS EPHEMERA" — improvised music samples from their CDs + some more verbal matter — Stuart Calton aka THF Drenching & Marie-Angelique Bueler aka Sonic Pleasure.
There are extensive audio files of talks and readings, eg Tom Raworth, Denise Riley, and so many more, on the audio pages of the The Kootenay School of Writing site. Canadian site.
"Meshworks is a site dedicated to documenting and preserving video and sound recordings of writing in performance." It contains performances from a number of writers, including Tom Raworth and Randolph Healy as Quicktime movies amd mp3s. Continually adding to its material. American site.
Courtesy of University of Southampton, the British Academy (there's institutional acceptance!) and eprints (open source, open access data & document repositories), comes a nice collection of recordings that in fact don't go back beyond 1960 (Hugh McDiarmid), and includes Allen Fisher, Roy Fisher, Maggie O'Sullivan, Denise Riley — lots! all well indexed & searchable.
produce on CD sound poetry and experimental music, in an electro-acoustic-collage-improvised-voice mix. Bob Cobbing & Lawrence Upton feature in the mix, and there are some mp3s to listen to on the site.
is a huge, no, very huge archive, a project of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, University of Pennsylvania. Eg Tom Raworth and so many more. A great resource. American site.
Alex Pryce's far-sighted and heroic project is an excellent site: podcasts of a very wide range of British poets. It has a lot of potential, and is only to be encouraged. Poets range from The Poetry Chicks (Jenni, Pamela and Abby) and Colin Dardis and all at ‘Make Yourself Heard‘ open mike night, to Chris Gutkind and Richard Price, via Eva Salzman and Alison Brackenbury. Claire Crowther and Hannah Silva are recent additions. Those poets who aren't represented on it – contact Alex Pryce now!
is a site for recordings of poets reading their own work, either from existing recordings, or with specifically commissioned readings. The range is wide, from Lord Tennyson and Rudyard Kipling to Roy Fisher, Tom Raworth, RF Langley and Denise Riley. Well done, Andrew Motion!
podcasting audio theatre, poetry, music and sound by Paul A Green and guests.
is London's first radio art station, brought to you by London Musicians' Collective. Interesting programming for Great Works habitues are:
Wednesday, 14.00-15.00 |
Late Lunch with Out To Lunch | |
Friday, 17.30-20.00 |
The Sound Projector Radio Show; Music and chat. Hosted by Ed Pinsent, sometimes with guest presenters. Linked with The Sound Projector Music Magazine. Material can include virtually any form of contemporary music or sound-art, for example improvised music, drones, modern composition, minimalism, sound poetry, electronica, laptop music, noise, or songs. |
is a series of 15 audio CDs commissioned by the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre at Birkbeck College, London, with readings to date including Lee Harwood and Tom Raworth. There are a few samples on the website, which is part of the Optic Nerve site, who are an independent production company who have produced a range of other poetry-related media projects. The CDs can be purchased from Carcanet Press.
broadcasts live each Wednesday (6-7 PM PST) from KWCW, 90.5 FM, Walla Walla, Washington (though off-air at present), and has some choice material available on its website, including Keston Sutherland reading "Forty Third Nature Via Diebold". The show is an activity linked with Tangent Press.
Note that not all sites in this category contain texts online. The situation should be clear from the explanatory paragraphs.
"Agenda is one of the best known and most highly respected poetry journals in the world, having been founded in 1959 by Ezra Pound and William Cookson." It is a surviving monument to High Modernism. I pay it respects for that, and in British terms that makes it oppositional, in a now alas quirky and cranky way. There are poems, essays and artwork on its website.
contains the catalogue of Allardyce, Barnett — with information that Anthony Barnett's poetry to 1999 and Veronica Forrest-Thomson's collected poetry without her translations, are accessible online to institutional subscribers to the Chadwyck-Healey databases LiteratureonLine LION & Twentieth-Century English Poetry. If you have access — check these out: major, serious poetry.
The great poetry magazine of the 90s has a partial existence on the Internet. Andrew Duncan's Pink.org hosts some back issues, 13-16, plus some odd bits, and the Poetry Magazines archive site issues 15 & 16, plus a splendid piece by Andrew Duncan on the magazine. And it has a revived print existence — seek it out! — issue 19 contains, among others, Kevin Nolan, Elizabeth James, Marianne Morris, Paul Holman, John Muckle, Philip Jenkins, Peter Philpott.
have a long history of fine poetry publication, with Glenn Baxter & Clark Coolidge, W N Herbert, Chris Emery, John Kinsella and Georg Trakl on their current list, and also specimens of the great Ivor Cutler.
namely, Neil Pattison and Sam Ladkin, of Cambridge, are on the cambridgepoetry.org website, and have pages from work published, including Emily Critchley and Dave Rushmer.
"specialises in extremist and avant-garde prose writing from the 1890s to the present day. [They] are the largest publisher in English of books on Surrealism and have an extensive list relating to Dada, Expressionism, the Oulipo, the College of 'Pataphysics, among others." A catalogue only online: but superb material. The site also acts as that of The London Institute of 'Pataphysics, if you like old jokes.
Bad Press publish serially and in booklets (lots of Marianne Morris). Bad Press Serials Version 1: "He's Asked For Size Ten Arial On This One & It Goes Over The Edge A Bit But If It's Size Ten Arial He Wants It's Size Ten Arial He's Getting #1", including poems by Peter Manson, John Wilkinson, prose from Drew Milne, pornography, a recipe and an environmental survey, available as pdf, also recordings of Fanny Howe and Ian Patterson reading (at Cambridge of course), and several Sophie Robinsons.
is the site of the excellent Barque Press. Publications are listed, and also the excellent Quid magazine, with some material online, including work by Andrea Brady, DS Marriott, John Tranter, Andrew Duncan, Peter Manson, John Wilkinson, Out To Lunch and JH Prynne, and poems from Cambridge Poetry Summit: The Catalogue. You can also get from them the DVD River Pearls, with material from the first Pearl River Poetry Conference, Guangzhou, June 2005. It has the full contributions of Che Qianzi and J.H. Prynne, plus further excerpts and readings.
is a small poetry press out of Liverpool and Bristol, with work on the site from some of the writers, including Peter Robinson, Ralph Pite and Julie-ann Rowell.
One of Britain's specialist poetry and literature publishers, always with a strong interest in high modernism. Current fresh titles include Edwin Morgan's Gilgamesh, Christine Brooke-Rose, Life, End of and ed Mark Ford & Trevor Winkfield, New York Poets II: from Edwin Denby to Bernadette Mayer. No material online, but you can access the current PR Review online.
University of Chicago-based magazine, with an emphasis on avant-garde poetry. Very relevant to Great Works is the recent issue on British Poetry: co-edited and introduced by Sam Ladkin & Robin Purves – presents 80 pages of poems by Andrea Brady, Chris Goode, Peter Manson & Keston Sutherland, plus critical contributions by John Wilkinson (on Andrea Brady), Jeremy Noel-Tod (on Peter Manson), Sam Ladkin (in conversation with Chris Goode), Simon Jarvis (on Keston Sutherland), & Matt Ffytche (on Keston Sutherland) (some reviews available online), and fifteen reviews of new books of British poetry. There is some interesting material to read on the site from previous issues; and some added material coming from the British Poetry issue in more recent issues (including Peter Riley's listing of important [First Generation] Cambridge School poems), and as well an interesting debate centred on Gender and Poetry, with several pieces online.
"The Collective was formed in 1990 to promote and publish contemporary poetry. Funds are raised through a series of poetry events held in and around South Wales." The real Black Mountain poets! Publishers of Graham Hartill.
from Cork do a magazine and so far one book. There is material online, including work by Giles Goodland.
Rod Mengham's long-established Cambridge press exhibits only its wonderful list of titles on the site, part of the cambridgepoetry.org website.
Nicholas Johnson's press lists its publications — an extraordinarily high quality of material, including work from Nicholas Johnson, Ed Dorn, John Hall, Carl Rakosi, Maggie O'Sullivan, Bob Cobbing, Harriet Tarlo.
appears a pretty good magazine from its contents pages on the website: David Chaloner, Sean Burn, Rob Holloway, Andrew Duncan, Paul Green and Johan de Witt all in most recent issue. The site also gives some text and mp3s from editor Tim Fletcher's poetry and sound/music CD, Sheetlight.
Glenn Storhaug's very fine press publishes work by Alan Halsey (including the astonishing Marginalien), Paul Matthews, Glenn himself, and Gavin Selerie's Le Fanu's Ghost; Some Business Of Affinity translations & versions by Paul Merchant I would also recommend. Forthcoming and seeking subscription: Alan Halsey, Lives of the Poets. No poems on the site, but an interesting essay "On printing poetry aloud", about the importance of careful and individual typesetting and presentation of poems.
of Brighton publish Marianne Morris and Jonty Tiplady.
is the website of a Canadian magazine and press extremely interested in British poetry, with details of its publications and other material, eg a Prynne bibliography, and reviews and similar stuff from the magazine, plus excerpts from the other publications. All valuable. There is a lot of Allen Fisher material from the publisher of Entanglement, including specimen poems, relevant poems not included in the book and a listing of critical comments on his work, and to publicise a new volume of work by Trevor Joyce, specimen poems from this too.
Always something new out of Cambridge! Pamphlets by Luke Roberts, Josh Stanley and Timothy Thornton, plus the excellent AXOLOTL magazine.
"is a publisher of experimental poetry: books, a magazine, downloads, and other forms, based in Manchester, UK. Established in 2008 it is the re-incarnation of Matchbox." There are a few texts (eg from Tony Trehy and Tom Jenks) and some downloads (eg from Ceri Buck and Tom Jenks) on the site. Well done, James Davies, and all at Manchester.
publish artists' books exploring largely the materiality of books and texts, and playing advanced silly buggers with theory. So much money in anything labelled "art" is one thought; that the work here genuinely alters how one responds to a printed text is another.
Bridget Penney and Paul Holman published during the 90s, but have stock available — trading now as a (mainly) second-hand book business. Publications include Anthony Barnett Carp and Rubato, Catherine Walsh, Idir Eatortha and Making Tents, Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Selected Poems, Paul Holman, The Memory of the Drift and the wondrous Loose Watch: A Lost And Found Times anthology (ed John M Bennett). Paul also has a blog, with recent work and other material posted on it; and a MySpacepresence.
publishes pocket-sized poem sequences, from Richard Price, Vahni Capildeo, R. F. Langley, Daniel Kane, Leo Mellor and others. There are brief excerpts on the website.
publish booklets by Kelvin Corcoran, Alan Baker, Tilla Brading, Lee Harwood, Peter Dent, Martin Stannard, with poems online. Also on the site is the excellent e-zine Litter (I really like both John Hall's An Essay on Ignorance and poems by Mark Goodwin, and there is too the editor (Alan Baker's) blog, Litterbug: Poetry, Publishing and other worldly affairs.
A selection of poetry & articles from the print magazine. Most interesting issue compares two 'Aspects of the Contemporary': David Constantine, What good does it do? (My goodness me, I do wonder. Have a cup of tea.) & Matthew Caley, Neo-hogbutchererbigdriftities: tracing a line out of the mainstream (as much fun as it sounds).
catalogue for John Welch's excellent press and magazine, whose titles include work by Tom Lowenstein, Nigel Wheale and John Welch. A more recent publication listed elsewhere.
James Davies' venture, Manchester-based, is gorgeous: poems in matchboxes, elegantly designed & presented. Current poets include Scott Thurston, Allen Fisher, Tim Atkins, Lisa Jarnot, Craig Dworkin, Bill Griffiths; and with neat original artwork. Little gems! The texts are all on the website; but that's beside the point. Fully interactive 3D presentation we are not yet up to out here in cyberspace.
Anthony Rudolf's press primarily publishes translations, listed on its site, which include from Rilke, Paz, Jacottet and Nerval.
Peter Hughes's new press has already got a beautiful list of booklets to its credit. There are brief extracts on the site, and a section on Peter's own poetry.
Have booklets from Peter Brennan, Adam Simmonds, Christine North, Nicholas Potamitis and Mario Petrucci, with a small sample of each.
Charging for poetry online! At £29.50, possibly interesting, for back issues of PN Review, the only "mainstream" British poetry magazine consistently engaging with writing that intersects with this site, plus an increasing archive of back issues (that could cover 30 years). But I think I'll hold onto the principle of cybercommunism a little longer. Current issue is accessible if you take the "free view".
is the website of Jeremy Hilton's excellent Fire magazine, with some poems on the site.
has a page on the Seren Books site, with full details of this now very exciting and open magazine, giving a vivid sense of contemporary English language Welsh poetry.
Major UK publisher of innovative poetry (& prose) (proprietor Ken Edwards) — no texts online, but full details of all publications & some links.
James Wilkes publishes his own work as this imprint: in beautiful and visually imaginative ways.
"Wales's leading literary publisher" started out with poetry, and has expanded into a wide range of publishing. Now there's Welsh culture for you. The poetry list is very long, and very broad.
publish Australian, Greek and British poets, including Richard Burns, Peter Robinson and even Peter Porter — no texts online, but details of all publications.
Barry Tebb has two sites — this one, which includes poems by other writers, including Michael Haslam, and also Barry Tebb — Poet, novelist, critic and publisher. Go to them for his strong opinions, his absolute devotion to poetry as a positive, therapeutic and educative experience, and his poems, which work well.
Paul Green's Press publishes a strong list, including Bill Griffiths, details of which are given on this site.
"Founded in November 1984 the magazine plays on. It is a 144 page book of poetry, prose poems, fiction, essays, translations, interviews and reviews published three times a year. Regular columns include Noise From The Cabin by Sarah Hopkins, From The Other Side Of The Fence by Tom Chivers and Afterword by David Caddy. Regular essayists and reviewers include Dzifa Benson, Ian Brinton, Peter Carpenter, Brendan Cooper, Jennifer K Dick, Sean Elliott, Edward Field, Sheila Hamilton, Linda Healey, Jeremy Hilton, Brian Hinton, Norman Jope, Alexis Lykiard, Gary Metras, Andrew Shelley, Dennis Tomlinson, John Welch. Newcomers are always welcome." Damned good print poetry magazine!
is the site of an interesting print magazine, with some poems online.
run by Leona Medlin and Richard Price, publishes modern Scottish poetry, poetry associated with 'The Poetry Workshop' (London), and modernist poetry in translation. Their list includes Richard price's own work, Elizabeth James, David Kinloch, WN Herbert, and translations of Vallejo and French modernists. Publishing has ceased, but the backlist is still interesting
"A quarterly publication for fresh new poetry with a bite" is a little more domesticated than it claims, and is the website for a print magazine, with some material online. It hosts some interesting writing — current issue includes a pdf of a photocopy of Hope Mirrlees, Paris (Hogarth Press, 1919), and a John Kinsella interview MP3among other audio material, mainly of readings.
For regular updates and full details, check Readings in London. I am not, I am afraid, going to put information needing updating on this page.
arranged by David Miller, Alyson Torns and Keith Jebb, normally upstairs at The Lamb, 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1, at 7.30, £5 or £3. I find this series extremely enlightening, as may be clear from the work on the site. Good readings, with a wide range foi poets. Usually the third Wednesday in the month. For further details of readings contact David Miller on katermurrATbtinternet.com or check on Readings in London.
Lists of and links to some other Cambridge activities, including a lot of publishing, the other Cambridge poetry conference, the Cambridge Poetry Summit, and reading series.
arranged by Jeff Hilson and Sean Bonney. At 7.30, £5 or £3 – The Leather Exchange, 15 Leathermarket St, London Bridge SE`1 3HN. For further details of readings contact J.HilsonATroehampton.ac.uk or check on Readings in London. I find this series also extremely enlightening, as may be clear from the work on the site. Very much poets reading to their peers, with a very strong collective sense. Almost always the first Thursday in the month.
based on improvised music (an old ally of British innovative poetry), but includes film and poetry, especially performance and sound poetry.
Very interesting: younger, less male-dominated and more multiethnic, and with a quite possibly very open policy: Sophie Robinson, Hannah Silva, Caroline Bergvall & Alex Walker have read at events. Follow what they are doing! Videos and audio on the site. Organised by Anthony Joseph & Sascha Akhtar.
An excellent scene! Readings take place irregularly in the basement of The Foundry, an art and peformance venue where Shoreditch meets Hoxton in splendid industrial chic (with organic Pittfield beer). At last: a valid innovative poetry event attracting an audience with a median age under 30 – few sad old codgers in macs like myself there (but they didn't throw me out for uncoolness!). Openned Anthology is available as a download, including work from Sean Bonney, Tim Atkins, John Cayley, Drew Milne, Frances Kruk, Emily Critchley and many others. This website is exemplary and packed with rich and useful material, well-presented.It has a superb set of listings for London events, and it is linked with The Other Room readings in Manchester. The site carries "Openned Reader (headlines from 50+ poetry sites)". Well done, Steve Willey & Alex Davies! This is how things should be. I should retire.
"Poetry reading series and website in Manchester, UK", is linked with Openned, but centered on a now lively Northern scene.
"We're a database for all live poetry, spoken word events, and poetry in performance coming up in the next 14 days." Most of this is essentially entertainment-based or therapy for amateurs. But the odd event may spark the interest of our readers.
"Evenings of performance poetry murmurings and musical offerings. Analogue communication and artistic appreciation. Dancing and dress-up heartily encouraged." Looks fun — Sophie Robinson at next gig.
arranged by Shearsman Books, at Swedenborg Hall, Swedenborg House, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH at 7.30 (no admission fee, but donations welcome). Alawys good poets, of course, Shearsman publish no others! A slightly older, more female audience than soem readings, with a quiet atmosphere (from its rather curious setting!)
This fair is organised by RGAP (Research Group for Artists Publications), who publish artists' books and organise collaborative projects, publications, exhibitions and events. It brings together a range of publishers, concerned mainly either with artists' books and/or small press poetry publications, including eg Bad Press, Bookartbookshop, Coracle (Ireland), Moschatel Press (UK), Poetic Practice (Royal Holloway University), Reality Street Editions, Veer Books, West House Books, Wild Hawthorn Press, yt Communication. There are usually readings. The next fair is 24th and 25th October 2008, at the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1, with readings on the Saturday afternoon. The webpage has on it at the moment some brief QuickTime movies of poets reading, including Alan Halsey, Geraldine Monk, Simon Cutts and Spike Hawkins. An excellent event.
at the very engaging Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin St, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, third Sunday of the month, 3–5, £4, offers poetry and music, cakes and ale, with the post-avant crowd for your Sunday afternoon pleasure. Check out the MySpace page. I organise and present it. See you there!
is a very long-running series of workshops, linked with the Writers Forum Press, founded by the late Bob Cobbing, and now carried on by Lawrence Upton and Adrian Clarke. These are open workshops within an experimental tradition. Details of all events, and how they proceed, are all given on the MySpace page.
So few! Please send in more, either online, or dealing in lovable dear old paper, that have a worthwhile stock (any stock?) of the sort of writing on this site. Useful is the page on the Salt site which lists their stockists.
tries for an online alternative bookshop. Poetry publishers are bluechrome, West House and Poetical Histories, plus a nostalgic line in political groupuscules eg International Communist Current — in worse state than the Gulf Stream.
17 Pitfield St, London N1 6HB (020 7608 1333), stock artists' books and small press publications.
at 51 The Cut, London SE1 8LF, has a good stock of literature and theatre books, and also hosts readings. I believe it has changed its name – but still has a current internet presence on the Calder Publishing website.
Some stock at Snooper's Paradise, Kensington Gardens, North Lane, Brighton, but mainly trading on the internet — wide second-hand stock, including some recent poetry.
West House Books, 40 Crescent Road, Nether Edge, Sheffield S7 1HN, have an extensive second hand catalogue specialising in modernist poetry from small presses, including obviously its own publications.