‘Very near to where I live there is a country park. It has an abundance of solid lines to balance along. One of my favourite lines is made from old railway track bolted to short pillars. This single railway rail is just a foot or two above the water of the river Soar, and it was placed here as a guard, to keep boats off the weir.’  Walker, climber and poet Mark Goodwin considers the development of his ‘rail-balancing’ practice in the parklands of Leicestershire, in which impediments to movement – protective rails and posts, sometimes recycled from transport infrastructure – are reclaimed as ‘ways’ through these managed landscapes. Click here to read ‘Along a Line’ on the Longbarrow Blog.

A versatile design of pale lime scales
had been messed up, intercut with twine…
Our new Featured Poem is ‘Moorhen’ by Fay Musselwhite (from Contraflow, her debut Longbarrow Press collection). Click here to read the poem, and to hear Musselwhite reading ‘Moorhen’ on the banks of the river Rivelin. Fay Musselwhite will be reading with Angelina D’Roza in the intimate setting of the Turret House, Sheffield Manor Lodge, on Saturday 17 September (2pm start). Advance booking essential (due to limited space); click here for more details. Also on Saturday 17 September, Longbarrow Press travels to Bloomsbury’s Conway Hall for the one-day Poetry Book Fair (10am – 4.30pm, free), where we’ll be sharing the hall with over 80 publishers from the UK. A full range of Longbarrow Press titles will be available; an exhibition and programme of readings and talks will also feature as part of the fair.

The Rose of Temperaments, a collaborative colour-themed project curated by Paul Evans and Brian Lewis, is unfolding on the project website, with new sonnets by Angelina D’Roza, A.B. Jackson, Chris Jones, Geraldine Monk, Helen Mort and Alistair Noon. Click here for the index of poems published to date (and those still to come); you can also hear recordings of each of the sonnets on this page, and read essays on the project here.

Finally, if you order any of our handsome litho-printed hardbacks in September you’ll get £1 off the RRP. Click on the following links for further details and to order: Contraflow by Fay Musselwhite, Envies the Birds by Angelina D’Roza, Skin by Chris Jones, The Navigators by Matthew Clegg, Steps by Mark Goodwin, West North East by Matthew Clegg and The Footing anthology.

Images:
Nikki Clayton (1)
Karl Hurst (2)