Storm force ten at the river mouth. The scale goes up to twelve. After that the sky breaks. The fir comes down and takes two eucalyptus with it.

Part poetic almanac, part private weather diary, J.R. Carpenter’s This is a Picture of Wind attempts to call attention to climate change by picturing through variations in language the disturbances and sudden absences left in the wake of wind. Longbarrow Press is delighted to announce the publication of a print iteration of this work in early June; in the meantime, we’ve created a new page on our website with some advance information about the book (which also includes an introduction by Johanna Drucker, and a poetic afterword by Vahni Capildeo). Click here for further details.

‘The parade ground is now a car park but I tell myself that I can still see the parade ground underneath. We can dream a future, we can turn to the past, we can be anywhere but the present. The things that I am after are at the far end of the store. I go through the list and find nothing that is on the list. The aisles seem tighter than before. A man inches forward, another man inches back, we make ourselves smaller to survive.’  Between 24 March and 22 April, Brian Lewis took a series of short walks in north Sheffield, delivering books and noting the impact of the COVID-19 constraints on the use and appearance of public space. The last of these daily entries are gathered as the final three instalments of ‘Lockdown Walks’ on the Longbarrow Blog. Part three (7–13 April) appears here; part four (14–18 April) appears here; and part five (19–22 April) appears here.

‘all along / I’d wanted // a distance / a distance’.  In May 2019, Nancy Gaffield and Mark Goodwin presented a unique collaborative performance at Sheaf Poetry Festival, drawing on their Longbarrow collections Meridian, Steps, and Rock as Gloss to explore themes of movement and mapping. You can now listen to the full performance via the audio player embedded below:

‘There is nothing left but land, pitted and treeless. / It ekes out into the mist…’  Our new Featured Poem is ‘Third Ypres’ by Rob Hindle (from his recent collection The Grail Roads); click here to read it.  All our hardback titles are currently post-free in the UK, and we will continue to fulfil orders while the Post Office remains open. We also offer hand delivery within Sheffield, at no extra cost (in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, all orders are prepared, packaged and posted in accordance with recommended hand hygiene and other preventive measures). Click here for a full list of our current hardbacks and to order titles.