Showing posts with label Frances Presley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frances Presley. Show all posts

Wednesday, 16 March 2016

Hanne Bramness's No Film in the Camera (trans. Frances Presley, Shearsman, 2013)

Here are some favourite passages from this splendid book of prose poems:


Pools of dew swell with the coming of spring but it will soon freeze, because there is a sense of loss.

end of "1"




The floor is partially erased by the light, it is still possible to set out and get across. It is still possible to pull back, run home and put an end to this experiment.


end of "2"


Photographers do not spend their whole lives taking photos in order to recall surfaces, but what has happened just before or long before, and what will happen immediately afterwards.

end of "11"


The presence of the photographer is not really a threat, but a substitute for one.

from "15"


There are many who will not dissimulate, they sacrifice their smile.

end of "19"


She blushes and smiles with her whole body, as much as she possibly can. But trying so hard does not inspire confidence.

end of "20"


The photographer is hunting Europe's spring, along boulevard and pig sty, he wants to catch the light that deprives things of their value--meaning their place in a hierarchy.

end of "27"


If there is no sky in this picture it is still an image of the heavens.

end of "33"


There's no doubt, she is who she pretends to be. 

end of "67"



Some time during the night it happens, she takes a picture of the dream tree just as the clouds are ripped away from the moon.

end of "81"



A fruit tree with buds, stopped before they could unfold, not shrivelled, not dead, but transformed into an image of longing.

end of "77"


Like the ice, the photo keeps everything in place for a while. And the picture exposes the silence, but if you listen long enough it will break into a roar.

end of "82"





You can buy this illuminating book of prose poems directly from the publisher here




Saturday, 20 July 2013

Current Issues



When I returned from Oxford yesterday, I had a happily large stack of post waiting, and this book was the most exciting piece. Last year, working with co-editor Jeremy Noel-Tod, I composed six entries for this new edition of The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry: Andrea Brady, Forrest Gander, Laura Kasischke, Tim Liardet, Frances Presley and Catherine Wagner. Summing up a career and describing a probably evolving poetic style (as all these authors are alive and wonderfully active) in a few hundred words proved more arduous and time-consuming than I anticipated. At the same time, I enjoyed improving my knowledge and understanding of their work. 

The experience of writing the entries also gave me one of my most rewarding exchanges with an editor. Noel-Tod provided an ideal balance of guidance and leeway (for lack of the better word escaping me), and while I expect editing such a large work with so many entries and contributors will dissuade him from any more editing for a while, I hope another, perhaps smaller opportunity to work together in this capacity will come again sometime. 

I think I've been put off from doing many of these 'Current Issues' entries by people posting news of their acceptances for publication on Facebook. I understand so well the excitement and pleasure such an acceptance brings and often feel the impulse myself to make such posts, but I feel uneasy with self-promotion that I force on people's notice. Here on the blog, I figure only those interested will come by to read what I'm up to, but even so, I don't want to sound like I'm bragging. *sigh*

So I'll thank the editors of Ambit, Molly Bloom, New Walk, Poetry Wales and Shearsman for their support of my work by choosing poems of mine to appear in future issues. I'm most grateful.


Sunday, 22 August 2010

Poetry Picnic at the Porlock Arts Festival, Saturday 11 September 2010

I can't attend, but dearly wish I could! Poets due to read include Tim Allen, Lyndon Davies, Giles Goodland, Alasdair Paterson, Frances Presley, Gavin Selerie, Sam Smith, Steve Spence, and many others. The organiser is Tilla Brading.


POETRY PICNIC PROGRAMME

Saturday, September 11th 2010

at the PORLOCK ARTS FESTIVAL

in Jubilee Garden or (if wet) Small Hall

Entrance at gate £3.50 Poetry book stall

TIME

EVENT

11.00 – 11.15

Music: Eileen Ann Moore & Jim Parham - Folk Songs & Guitar

11.15 – 11.40

FIRE RIVER POETS

11.40 – 12.05

INDIVIDUALS Jo/Chris/John/Rosemary/Jillian

12.05 – 12.15

Music: Eileen Ann Moore & Jim Parham - Folk Songs & Guitar

12.15 – 12.40

UNCUT POETS

12.40 - 1.05

POETS FROM LONDON ETC..

1.05 2.00

Lunch, Music (1.30-40) followed by Open Mic (1.40-2.00-sign up!)

2.00 – 2.25

POETS FROM WALES

2.25 – 2.50

PLYMOUTH LANGUAGE CLUB

2.50 – 3.00

Music: Eileen Ann Moore & Jim Parham - Folk Songs & Guitar

3.00 – 4.00

GUEST POET: Harriet Tarlo


http://www.porlockfestival.org/

Tuesday, 13 July 2010

Women's Innovative Poetry & Cross-Genre Festival, 14-16 July, London

Emily Critchley and Carol Watts have drawn together an outstanding array of presenters and performers for the Women's Innovative Poetry & Cross-Genre Festival this Wednesday, 14 July through Friday, 16 July at the University of Greenwich. Participants include Caroline Bergvall, Andrea Brady, Lee Ann Brown, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Susanna Gardener, Lisa Jarnot, Frances Presley, Lisa Robertson, Sophie Robinson, Eleni Sikelianos, Zoe Skoulding, Harriet Tarlo, Fiona Templeton, Cathy Wagner, and numerous others--the full schedule is online here. And the cost? Donation only. I'm expecting moments of poetic bliss.

Tuesday, 6 July 2010

Dublin reading podcasts

My reading in June on the Wurm im Apfel series in Dublin is now available in two podcasts from iTunes (simply search for my name under the description--not author) or for streaming online on this page of the Wurm im Apfel site. I read selections by Claire Crowther, Frances Presley, Anna Reckin, and Lucy Sheerman from Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets, as well as some of my own work from that anthology and from my pamphlet Yet (Leafe, 2008). Thanks to Kit Fryatt and Dylan Harris for the invitation and their generosity, and to Poetry Ireland for funding the event.

Friday, 26 February 2010

Infinite Difference, sampler no. 5: Frances Presley, from "Alphabet for Alina"

from "Alphabet for Alina"

a

apple a pull a tree a lina
leans her aap pull an apple an
ape sun ap rise across a cross be
tween cox and box her sunset keep
her kept such red to last such red to read

a tart start heart wood this year
the sun gone set or unripe apples
for supermarkets not my favourite
checks to come and live in caravans
pays less than factory work leaf eaters

whose apples who eats this
apple do not snow white do not
white out my reading burst let her
breathe let her choose between apple
and mirror of the apple her s/own character


Frances Presley


The anthology can be pre-ordered from the publisher, Shearsman Books, and The Book Depository in the UK and from The Book Depository or Small Press Distribution in the US.