Lower the tip of your split-cane rod:
these peatland drains are black with little eels.
Longbarrow Press is delighted to announce the publication of Eely, a new collection by Steve Ely.
Eely is a symphony in four movements. The first movement, Eel (previously published in a slightly different version by Longbarrow Press as The European Eel), focuses on the lifecycle, ecology, epic migration, conservation status and enigma of the European eel. The second movement, ˈiːlai/, explores two main themes: the author’s autobiographical encounter with the eel, and the conflict that was so often associated with that encounter. The third movement, eely, develops the themes of the second movement in a guerrilla-pastoral, folk-horror fantasy of the author as a were-eel—if Eel is an adagio and ˈiːlai/ a sonata, then eely is a capriccio. The fourth movement, Eelysium, concludes the piece and broadens the vision with a focus on the Eastern fenlands of England. The English fenlands were once a stronghold of the European eel, as they were for many other species. The poem imagines the origin of the fens in the eustasy of the early Holocene, their development from the Mesolithic to the Early Modern period, their ecological and economic superabundance, the social and ecological catastrophe of their destruction, and a vision of their restoration.
Eely
£14.99 £14 (launch price)
UK orders (+ £2.50 postage)
Europe orders (+ £5.95 postage)
Rest of World orders (+ £9.25 postage)
A beautifully produced 184-page hardback, Eely is available now from Longbarrow Press. You can order the book securely by clicking on the relevant PayPal link above (major debit cards accepted – no PayPal account required).
Our current Featured Poem is ‘Winwædfeld’ from Eely; you can read it here. Eely is launched at Small Seeds, Castlegate, Huddersfield, HD1 2UD on Thursday 25 April as part of the 2024 Huddersfield Literature Festival (6pm start). Click here for further details and tickets (the event is free, but booking is recommended).
“The drainage of the fens is generally regarded as a triumphant episode in the national historiography, in which vast tracts of uninhabited and pestilent swamp were converted into the most productive farmland in Britain, contributing significantly to feeding the growing population of the nation as it rose to become a mighty imperial power. The truth of the matter is very different.” In a new post for the Longbarrow Blog, Steve Ely discusses the themes that inform his new collection – biodiversity, fenland, power, conflict, eels, and more – and introduces four poems from the book. Click here to read ‘Eelysium’.
All this time I’ve been waiting for dawn
when I already had what I needed.
‘Correspondences: The Lark Ascending’, from Angelina D’Roza‘s new collection The Blue Hour, is a recent Featured Poem; you can read it here. A further poem in the ‘Correspondences’ series – ‘The Credence of Birds’ – is the focus of a conversation between Angelina D’Roza and Chris Jones, recorded for series one of The Two-Way Poetry Podcast, in which the two poets discuss influence, process, Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy and the gritstone ‘theatre’ of the Peak District. You can listen to the conversation here (and read the text of D’Roza’s poem). All nine episodes of series one of The Two-Way Poetry Podcast (with contributions from Longbarrow poets James Caruth, Matthew Clegg, Pete Green and Rob Hindle, among others) are gathered here.
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