Longbarrow Press

While forest furs the earth, a subterrain
shrugged from shrubbery and trees
mulches over land’s rock-bones,
our lungs unpleat and iron streams our veins.

Longbarrow Press is delighted to announce the publication of The Gleaning, a new collection by Fay Musselwhite.

As the human journey from rural to urban continues, emerging cities grapple with the chaos of burgeoning influx. Whether by circumstance or unscrupulous practices, land, class and nature frequently feature in skirmishes that trespass on the lives and
communities of those who will benefit least from their outcomes.

Floods, freezes, enclosure and gentrification are among the threats rolling in on all sides to divide and exploit the marginalised. At the lean end, some fall by the wayside; others struggle on; others still rise to the challenge and celebrate their lives. Meanwhile, the countryside is further eroded by the hard surfaces and regimented requirements of human priorities.

Land, class and nature run through these poems like family threads or mineral deposits. Stories gleaned from the ever-changing tensions between these enduring forces highlight the movement of populations and the shifting layers of matter on our planet, while revealing ancient legacies that drive the mechanisms of our minds.

Fay Musselwhite‘s debut collection Contraflow (Longbarrow Press, 2016) was acclaimed by Peter Riley for its “impressive capability in handling a long breath, as well as narrative continuity, rhythmic and sonic presence”. The Gleaning moves into new terrain – thematically and geographically – with poems of displacement and exile, and an extended dramatic sequence that reimagines the events surrounding Sheffield’s first parliamentary election in 1832, and the riot that ensued.

The Gleaning
132-page hardback
£14.99 £14 (special launch price)

UK orders (+ £2.50 postage)

Europe orders (+ £6.85 postage)

Rest of World orders (+ £11.50 postage)

You can order the book securely by clicking on the relevant PayPal link above (major debit cards accepted – no PayPal account required). Click here to read the opening poem, ‘Crow and Rainbow’.

“Saturn has been shrunk to a football, its rings at a tilt, and most of the colour worn away. Weather patterns. It’s part of a scale model of the Solar System. The scale is 1:575,872,239. The model is spread out along 6.4 miles of the trail. Size and distance. I’ve missed Jupiter. Almost a mile back.” Earlier this month, Brian Lewis set out on the fourth in a series of walks through the counties of Yorkshire. An account of this excursion – from York to Goole, via the River Ouse, the Trans Pennine Trail, and the gas and ice giants of the Outer Solar System – appears here.

Click here to browse and buy our current publications. You’ll receive a free copy of Inventory (a pamphlet drawing on twenty years of Longbarrow Press) with orders over £8.

“2.55am. To the north, a meteor, halfway between the heavens and the horizon. It happens in the moment that I lift my eyes from the road. It happens once and once only. It’s enough. To look out without looking. This must be the Quadrantids, named for Quadrans Muralis, an obsolete constellation.”  A few days into the new year, Brian Lewis set out on a night walk from Thorne to Goole, via the Stainforth and Keadby Canal, Keadby Wind Farm, the River Trent, the River Ouse and the Dutch River, picking up the thread of last year’s ‘Unrecovered Time’, and spanning thirty miles and three counties. Click here to read ‘Point Zero’.

“This tour de force of language, imagination, varied technique, almost obsessive scholarship and huge emotional force must rank among the most outstanding of recent long British poems.” Nick Cooke’s appraisal of Steve Ely‘s ‘symphonic poem’ Eely leads his winter selection on The High Window site; you can read the review here. Steve is one of six Longbarrow poets who will be taking part in Habitation, a themed, collective reading at The Harlequin, Sheffield, on Tuesday 21 April; the other readers are Angelina D’Roza, Pete Green, Rob Hindle, Chris Jones and Fay Musselwhite. The event is free, but places are limited: please click here to reserve your place on Eventbrite. A few days later, Longbarrow Press will be among the stallholders at the Free Verse Poetry Book Fair in London (Saturday 25 April). Free Verse is free to attend; no booking required. Click here for further details.

“The inventory is whatever will fit into two rucksacks and two carrier bags. To be hauled, on foot, between tram, train and tube. City to city.​ One year to the next.”  In late October, Small Publishers Fair returned to London for the annual gathering of artists, writers, presses and visitors. Longbarrow Press editor Brian Lewis was among the participating publishers; his account of the weekend can be found here. “The nature of a pop-up is that it is drawing to a close from the moment that it opens. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can help to give it focus and purpose.”  Several years ago, Longbarrow Press was part of SHIP, a ‘temporary collective’ of four independent publishers, vending their wares from a unit in Sheffield’s Moor Market. Brian Lewis live-tweeted a journal (of sorts) from the stall. Here it is, revisited, with some reflections on the experience.

“A life recovered in the moment of its telling, a city caught in the act of disappearing.” One morning in May 2025, Chris Jones and Brian Lewis recorded a conversation for Chris’s Two-Way Poetry Podcast series, which has invited more than twenty poets to share their thoughts on process, influence and craft since it launched in autumn 2023. The conversation was edited by Chris and uploaded in two instalments: both episodes are embedded in this post, prefaced by Chris’s written introductions, with an extract from Lewis’s ‘delivery journal’ to close.

Click here to browse and buy our current publications. You’ll receive a free copy of Inventory (a pamphlet drawing on twenty years of Longbarrow Press) with orders over £8.