Longbarrow Press is delighted to announce the publication of its first two full-length collections this September. The first of these, Matthew Clegg‘s West North East, is a book in three parts, each comprising a different approach to ideas of crisis, journey and imaginative crossing. Fugue presents a journey from the periphery towards points off the map; Edgelands (reworked from the 2008 pamphlet edition) maps a border territory; Chinese Lanterns finds the Edgelands poet returning changed (or estranged) before preparing for a new departure. You can read extracts from the book on the new West North East microsite, and listen to several poems from the opening section in the podcast below (recorded on location in snowbound North Sheffield earlier this year):

September also sees the publication of the long-awaited walking-themed anthology The Footing, comprising substantial contributions from poets Angelina Ayers, James Caruth, Mark Goodwin, Rob Hindle, Andrew Hirst, Chris Jones and Fay Musselwhite. City, country and coast (and the spaces in between) are the settings for these journeys; here, the act of walking is, by turns, exploratory, destructive, restorative, defiant, contemplative and devotional. Further details can be found on The Footing microsite (along with essays, films and recordings). Here’s the first poem in James Caruth’s ‘Tithes’:

On the Longbarrow Blog, Brian Lewis discusses the art of the poetry film in ‘Motion Studies’, while photographer Karl Hurst considers the relationship between image-making and island thinking in ‘My Island Home’. Finally, Angelina Ayers previews a new exhibition (curated by artist Rachel Smith) at Sheffield’s Bank Street Arts in August: click here for further details on Angelina’s blog.