Longbarrow Press

This quiet is more shul than nothingness and must be given due respect. She thinks it’s like the grass on Lose Hill, that doesn’t muddy where others have been, but tilts gold at certain times of day, and leads her down from the top.

Longbarrow Press is delighted to announce the publication of Angelina D’Roza‘s debut full-length collection of poems, Envies the Birds.

In Tibetan, shul is the impression left after whatever made it has gone. Envies the Birds is the tarmac blueprint where a tower block once stood, “the channel worn through rock where a river runs in flood, the indentation in the grass where an animal slept last night”.

A beautifully produced 80-page hardback, Envies the Birds is available now from Longbarrow Press for £12.99 (inc UK P&P). You can order the book from the Envies the Birds microsite (which also has sample poems, recordings and essays relating to the collection), or by clicking on the relevant PayPal link below (major debit cards accepted – no PayPal account required):

Envies the Birds: £12.99 (inc UK P&P)

Envies the Birds: £16 (inc Europe P&P)

Envies the Birds: £18 (inc Rest of World P&P)

Envies the Birds will be launched at The Fat Cat, Alma Street, Sheffield, S3 8SA on Wednesday 18 May (7.30pm start). Admission is free; all are welcome. Click here for further details of the launch. 

‘Somewhere else, days are getting shorter. And somewhere else again, spring and autumn are barely words.‘ Angelina D’Roza‘s new post on the Longbarrow Blog, ‘Late for the Sky’, takes up some of the themes of Envies the Birds, including seasonal (and unseasonal) change, hope in the desert, and the transformative potential of song. You can read it here.

‘Everything starts with the voice, though; if the conviction and necessity are missing, if the tone is weak or indistinct, then no amount of technical finesse will compensate.’
A new interview with Brian Lewis for The Poetry School reflects on the origins of Longbarrow Press, the importance of rethinking and rebuilding books through collaborative design, and the practical challenges (and rewards) of running a small press. Click here to read the interview.

‘Before the bomb sites and bad houses could be scratched from the streets, before a vision of high-rise living could be built up from sketches, temporary solutions to the housing crisis were being pieced together at the city’s edges: the quick, new prefabs, plotted in 1944 and delivered within weeks of the war’s end, their concrete walls framed in timber or steel, the steel recycled from Anderson shelters.’
This month’s new post on the Longbarrow Blog is a social history of Swindon, a working town in the south of England. The essay reflects on its growth as a trade centre, its transition from market town to railway town in the 19th century, and the challenges of the post-war environment; it is also a memoir of a self-build housing scheme, and of one of the men who took part in it. Click here to read ‘Self-build’ by Brian Lewis.

‘The exchanges that take place are a form of heightened listening…’  A new interview with Brian Lewis for Opus Independents
highlights the ethics and methods that have shaped the development of Longbarrow Press, with an emphasis on the role of landscape, collaboration and field-based research. Click here to read the interview. ‘It is this retracing of well-trodden paths through modern history in the shoes of the 99% that makes Broughton’s tragic life seem so close and familiar to the contemporary reader.’ Jack Windle’s close reading of Rob Hindle‘s dramatic sequence The Purging of Spence Broughton, a Highwayman (recently reissued by Longbarrow Press in an expanded pamphlet edition) places individual episodes and the wider arc of the narrative in an illuminating historical context, and offers some insights into the roles of contemporary figures such as the songwriter Joseph Mather. Click here to read the review. Rob Hindle discusses and reads from The Purging of Spence Broughton in the unique atmosphere of Sheffield Manor Lodge (Manor Lane, Sheffield, S2 1UJ) on Monday 7 March. Click here for further information and to book tickets.

We’ve created a new Podcasts page to showcase the extended sequences, poetry walks, field recordings and collective performances we’ve created since 2008. Click here to browse and listen to the audio recordings. Our most recent podcast, documenting the Mexborough canal walk led by Matthew Clegg and Ray Hearne in May 2015, is available to hear below:

This year’s States of Independence one-day independent press fair takes place at De Montfort University in Leicester on Saturday 12 March (10.30am-4.30pm, admission free), with more than 70 writers presenting readings and workshops throughout the day. You are also welcome to visit the Longbarrow Press stall (with a full range of books, pamphlets and other objects). Click here to view the full programme of readings, workshops, displays and talks.