Claire Crowther's new pamphlet, Mollicle--first selection

Here's my first selection from Claire's new pamphlet, Mollicle, published by Nine Arches Press. Tomorrow she'll be launching it in London alongside Matt Bryden with his prizewinning pamphlet, Night Porter (Templar, 2010), and me with my US chapbook, Divinations (Punch Press, 2010), now sold out but for the four copies I'm bringing to the event. For details of the reading, please see the Readings & Events page.

Self Portrait as Windscreen

Do you think I'm clear on every issue

just because I'm glass?

Have you heard yourself calling 'Claire,

Claire, Claire, Claire' when you're confused?

A name is lulling

when you aren't clear on every issue.

So your favourite phrase 'Let's be clear

on this one thing'

is the public face of 'Claire, Claire.'

I see you everywhere, using my nature,

hardened from soft,

imagining you're clear. Fired, made

to soften, harden again. We're laminated.

The crack that comes

won't shatter us or your calling.

Claire Crowther

Mollicle (Nine Arches, 2010)

New pamphlet, Divinations, out from Punch Press

It's here! After an initial shipment of twenty copies seems to have been lost in the transatlantic post, I returned to Bradford on Avon today to find the additional two copies editor Richard Owens later posted. It is stunningly beautiful. It contains twenty poems from the series Divining for Starters and can be ordered for $10 in the US and $15 abroad (via Paypal) on the Punch Press website (admittedly it's a little expensive, but the production quality is ideal).

Divinations

In March I mentioned that Richard Owens, of Punch Press and Damn the Caesars in Buffalo, New York, had expressed his interest in doing a letterpress chapbook/pamphlet of poems from the Divining for Starters series. I'd submitted poems to the magazine, and following that, Owens had asked to see the whole DfS series. I feel only about a third of it is good enough to share publicly, so I sent those pieces to him. Eight will appear in the next issue of Damn the Caesars, while twenty will be collected in a letterpress chapbook, Divinations (there's some overlap). Tonight I returned the proofs for both, so I gather publication will follow shortly. More news as I have it!

Divining

Good news! Richard Owens of Damn the Caesars and Punch Press has asked to bring out a small letterpress chapbook/pamphlet of poems from the "Divining for Starters" series. I'll provide more details when I have them; I gather it will appear later this year. To read about the series, see my earlier post, or to read a selection, see Shearsman 60.