Longbarrow Press

In my dream I couldn’t pick those thorns
from the sunk-eyed creature’s fan of horns.
‘Carved Antler’, Chris Jones

The Spirit is a Bone is a new exhibition of drawings by Paul Evans based on the various natural history specimens sited at Derby Museum (accompanied by new poems by Chris Jones). Click here for further details about the exhibition (and details of a reading and artist’s talk with Paul Evans and Chris Jones at Derby Museum on Saturday 25 May).

Matthew Clegg visits Sheffield’s Bloc Projects and reflects on a recent exhibition by artist Nigel Grimmer in ‘The Art of Relationship’, which takes in masks, monuments and memoir. Click here to read the essay. Brian Lewis revisits Sheffield’s Graves Gallery (site of a memorable reading given by poet Andrew Hirst in 1998) in ‘Gifts Received’, a new piece for the Longbarrow Blog. Elsewhere, Peter Riley addresses conflict and competitiveness in a review of two new poetry anthologies; click here to read the review (and further contributions to the debate in the ensuing ‘Comments’).

The 2013 Sheffield Poetry Festival takes place over 10 days in early June (31 May – 9 June). The full programme can be found on the new Sheffield Poetry Festival website and includes several events featuring Longbarrow poets (including Angelina Ayers, James Caruth, Matthew Clegg, Rob Hindle, Chris Jones, Fay Musselwhite and Alistair Noon). Click here for details of all 30 events – readings, films, workshops, walks and more…

Paul Evans’ The Song of Meeting and Parting is the current Bloc Projects billboard commission (the billboard can be viewed in Sylvester Street, Sheffield, until the end of May). It was also the title of the recent Sheffield poetry walk led by Matthew Clegg and Chris Jones (coinciding with the installation of the artwork). The billboard and the poetry walk offered a collective meditation on migration (and decline) in bird populations, with the murmurations of starlings being a recurrent theme. Our current Featured Poem presents Evans’ artwork alongside Chris Jones’ poem ‘Murmuration’; click here to view the image and read (and listen to) the poem. We’ve also uploaded a short film of Clegg and Jones reading the poems ‘Night City’ and ‘Lost’ during the latter stages of the walk; the film can be viewed here.

On a windy day in February 2011, poet Rob Hindle (and an audience of 30) took a walk through east Sheffield. The walk retraced the journey made by members of Sheffield’s notorious Park Brigade gang following the murder of a soldier in April 1925; a journey also retraced in Hindle’s poem ‘Princess Street to the Wicker’ (featured in the forthcoming Longbarrow Press anthology The Footing), from which he read along the route. The walk is documented in this short film (titled Ganglands):

We’ve also uploaded Line Break, a short film documenting the collaboration between poets James Caruth, Matthew Clegg, Andrew Hirst and Chris Jones and visual artists Paul Evans and Brian Lewis at Site Studio, Sheffield, in November 2008. Poetry, painting, photography and performance.

The image at the top of this post is taken from Karl Hurst’s recent photo-series Learning to Let Go. Click here to view the full set of 45 photographs as a slideshow. Finally, the Longbarrow Blog has new posts from Mark Goodwin (discussing the ethics of poetry publishing) and Alistair Noon (in search of The Transsylvanians). Click here to read these (and other) pieces.

Longbarrow Press has created a limited series of special packages comprising a selection of pamphlets, recordings and scarce ephemera. Each of these three packages (including pamphlets and CDs by Kelvin Corcoran, Matthew Clegg and Lee Harwood) is priced at £10 (inclusive of UK p&p) and is exclusive to the website. The packages make an ideal (and affordable) introduction to the work of the press. Click here for more information and to order via PayPal.

W S Graham’s elegies for the painters Peter Lanyon and Bryan Wynter are discussed in ‘Dead Letters’, a new essay by Brian Lewis published on the Longbarrow Blog. Click here to read the essay. Further posts by Alistair Noon and Mark Goodwin will appear on the blog during March.

On Saturday 30 March (2pm) artist Paul Evans presents The Song of Meeting and Parting at Sheffield’s Bloc Projects. This special event will take in a poetry walk led by Matthew Clegg and Chris Jones, a ceremony by Becky Bowley, a new painting by Dominic Mason, and a new billboard commission by Evans. Please note that this event is now fully booked.

Our current Featured Poem is Peter Riley‘s ‘Alstonefield 1995′; click here to read the poem (you can also listen to a recording of Riley reading the poem here). Incubator, a collaboration between photographer Karl Hurst and electro artist Nullish, appears here. Finally, we’ve uploaded an excerpt from February’s Outskirts and Outposts event (featuring Matthew Clegg, Mark Goodwin and Chris Jones); listen to the recording here.

Mark Goodwin and Chris Jones will read at Newstead Abbey on Saturday 9 February as part of the inaugural Nottingham Festival of Words (click here for further details and booking). The two poets have devised a special, one-off collaborative performance for the occasion; an exploratory tour of the English outskirts (accompanied by a projected film of Nikki Clayton‘s photographs). Here’s a transcript of Elaine Aldred’s recent conversation with Goodwin, in which he discusses publishing, poetics, rock-climbing and slack-lining. Goodwin’s words and voice (and Clayton’s images) feature in this short film by Brian Lewis (based on our recent closer to ground to hear installation).

We’ve uploaded the third (and final) part of our recent Winter Songs event to SoundCloud (parts 1 & 2 are now deleted). A journey into exile with poets Angelina Ayers, Matthew Clegg, Andrew Hirst, Chris Jones and Fay Musselwhite (through landscapes haunted by the shades of TS Eliot, Emily Dickinson, Gyorgy Petri and Peter Reading). Click on the podcast below. ‘Listen to it / all night north…’

Poems in order of appearance: Journey of the Magi – TS Eliot (read by Chris Jones); 
St Hilary’s Exile – Angelina Ayers; Welund’s Lament – Andrew Hirst; There’s a certain slant of light… – Emily Dickinson (read by Angelina Ayers); Out Far and In Deep – Matthew Clegg
; Night Song of the Personal Shadow – Gyorgy Petri (read by Andrew Hirst)
; Impasse – Fay Musselwhite; Ovidian – Peter Reading (read by Matthew Clegg).

Finally, we’ve created a short film in response to Kelvin Corcoran‘s remarkable poem ‘Season Below Ground’ (featured in his 2010 Shearsman collection Hotel Shadow). Corcoran’s acclaimed 2011 pamphlet Words Through A Hole Where Once There Was A Chimpanzee’s Face is still available from Longbarrow Press (click here to order)

Following the success of our recent Winter Songs event at The Fat Cat in Sheffield, we’ve uploaded the evening’s first two parts to SoundCloud (the recordings were available until 13 February. Part three is still available here). The first selection of poems (read by Angelina Ayers, Matthew Clegg, Andrew Hirst, Chris Jones and Fay Musselwhite) explores connections between winter and ideas of home; the second moves through winter landscapes. Read Camille Brouard’s Winter Songs review (for Forge Today) here.
Part Two [now deleted] | Poems in order of appearance: Snow in North Jersey – August Kleinzahler (read by Angelina Ayers); 
As I Step Over a Puddle… – James Wright (read by Chris Jones); Chappaquiddick, 1980 – Andrew Hirst; Yakov – Philip Levine (read by Matthew Clegg); Feeding Out–Wintering Cattle – Ted Hughes (read by Fay Musselwhite); The Snow Man – Wallace Stevens (read by Angelina Ayers).
Part One [now deleted] | Poems in order of appearance: The Winter’s Spring – John Clare (read by Fay Musselwhite); The Last Workday Before Christmas – Matthew Clegg; 
Walking the Ward – Angelina Ayers; Name – Chris Jones; Firewood – Fay Musselwhite; The Darkling Thrush – Thomas Hardy (read by Andrew Hirst); A Journey Home / The Last Day of the Year – Chris Jones.

The winter comes, I walk alone,
I want no bird to sing…

Longbarrow Press marks the new year with Winter Songs, a specially curated evening of readings by Angelina Ayers,
Matthew Clegg, Andrew Hirst,
Chris Jones and Fay Musselwhite. The five poets will present a selection of their own (and other poets’) work tracing a path through the darkest season. Admission free; all welcome. Sunday 20 January (7.30pm prompt start), The Fat Cat, 23 Alma Street, Sheffield, S3 8SA.

The themes of winter and exile are taken up in a further audio extract from Andrew Hirst’s Frome poem-cycle; listen to ‘Frome XVI’ below.

We’ve also uploaded a recording of Matthew Clegg’s ’A Letter from Tu Fu’ (from his forthcoming collection West North East), recorded on location in Hillsborough:

Finally, we’ve created a new piece based on the recordings that developed from last year’s Moving with Thought workshop and walk, featuring excerpts from poems by Zoe Walkington, Chris Jones, Emma Bolland, John Barron, Steve Sawyer, Mark Doyle, Mary Marken, Oliver Mantell, Matthew Clegg and Julie Mellor (and the sounds of Parkwood Karting):

We step up onto the shoulder, the cloud disperses, the land retreats before us, walking backwards into private estates…

The Downfall (revisited) comprises two new paintings by Paul Evans and two excerpts from a new work by Peter Riley (The Ascent of Kinder Scout). It is the fifth work to develop from the year’s Seven Wonders collaborations and revisits the site(s) of a notable physical and cultural landmark of the Peak District: Kinder Scout. View The Downfall (revisited) here.

The Seven Wonders series (which continues in 2013) was one of many highlights in a busy year for Longbarrow Press. Here’s a summary of our most memorable events, projects and publications in 2012:
#1  January.  The year begins with two new pamphlets by Alistair Noon. Across the Water crosses and recrosses the rivers, lakes and seas of Central Europe (and further afield); Swamp Area explores the slippery terrain of the modern city-state (post-reunification Berlin). Listen to Noon reading ‘Filling the Triangle’ (on location) here.
#2  April.  The publication of Peter Riley‘s XIV PIECES pamphlet and CD, for which Riley creates a series of home recordings that incorporate the ‘presence’ of the domestic (and several musical offerings) to great effect. Listen to ‘Floating Verse’ here.
#3  May.  The first of several Longbarrow short films is uploaded to our Vimeo site. Over the course of the year, the films range from documentary and performance to dream-like meditations; at the heart of each project is a commitment to craft a response to the poem that is both innovative and sympathetic. View our Vimeo films here.
#4  June.  Artist Paul Evans‘ Seven Wonders project resumes. This series of collaborations between Evans and an expanding cast of poets (in 2012, Angelina Ayers, Mark Goodwin, Fay Musselwhite, Alistair Noon and Peter Riley) yields five new works (based on the natural ‘wonders’ of the Peak District). Visit the Seven Wonders website here.
#5  June.  Matthew Clegg‘s Moving with Thought walk and workshop explores the relationship between walking and poetry – between the body, the mind and the landscape. The workshop participants responded to the invitation with some excellent poems; click here to read them and to access further links to audio recordings of the poems and a short film of the walk.
#6  September.  Inspired by the mystery of bird calls and songs, Call & Response (co-curated by Paul Evans and Brian Lewis) presents 22 new haiku by 10 poets (broadcast via Twitter and SoundCloud) as part of The University of Sheffield’s Festival of the Mind. Click here to read the haiku.
#7  September.  A Navigation with Matthew Clegg leads an audience of 20 along the Sheffield Canal for a poetry walk that illuminates the culture and history of this quiet, bewitching otherworld. Listen to Clegg reading his poem ‘Attercliffe’ towards the end of the walk here.
#8  October.  Longbarrow Press: Scale, a series of newly commissioned films and performances, takes place at Sheffield’s Bloc Projects. A performance of ‘Scale’ offers a mix of live readings, film and a new performance devised by Becky Bowley and Mark Goodwin; an artist’s talk by Paul Evans illuminates the ideas of ‘scale’ at work in the programme. Click here for more information about the Scale collaborations.
#9  October.  Rob Hindle’s The Purging of Spence Broughton, a Highwayman returns to Hill Top Chapel, Attercliffe, Sheffield with a new cast of supporting readers (Matt Black, James Caruth, Ray Hearne, Chris Jones and Fay Musselwhite). Click here to read more about Rob Hindle’s (re)telling of the Spence Broughton story.
#10  November.  Our pioneering audio work continues with the podcast of Matthew Clegg‘s new sequence, Cave Time and Sea Changes, based on recordings made by Clegg and Lewis during a visit to a sea cave near Flamborough Head. Clegg’s readings of the poems are punctuated by reflections on the writing of the sequence, memories of earlier visits to the coast, observations on the effects of light within the cave, and the constant presence of the tide ‘as it gulps back / Or sighs forward, swell by swell’. Listen to the podcast here.
#11  November.  closer to ground to hear, a collaborative work by Mark Goodwin (audio poems and texts), Nikki Clayton (photographs) and Brian Lewis (sound design), is installed at Bank Street Arts, Sheffield. A merging of Tarkovsky’s Zone with the rurban rim of north-east Sheffield, the installation is reshaped by Lewis during the residency. Click here to visit the closer to ground to hear site.
#12  December.  The year draws to a close with the publication of Andrew Hirst‘s Hello Dolly, a triptych of long poems exploring (and employing) the strategies of rhetoric and public speech. Listen to Hirst’s uncompromising views on Robert Browning, Patty Hearst and Teddy Kennedy, politics and poetics, and the (mis)management of culture in this candid, compelling podcast.

2013 will see the publication of The Footing, an anthology of specially commissioned poems on the theme of walking, and West North East, the debut full-length collection by Matthew Clegg. Further information about these titles will be posted here in the near future.