Longbarrow Press

Our series of essays and podcasts reflecting on the fragments of Catholic wall art encountered in a one-day tour of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire churches concludes with two blog posts by Emma Bolland and Chris Jones. In ‘The Last Judgement‘, Bolland draws out the shape of the devil from the walls of St Andrew’s, Pickworth, and marvels at the persistence of pigment, centuries after the Reformation’s 100-year campaign to purge the churches of colour. The third and final post in the series, Jones’ ‘The Shepherds of Corby Glen‘, is a reimagining of the community that rural churchgoers might have known in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, reflected back to them through paintings of bucolic scenes, whitewashed, rediscovered, and now ‘floating up through the bricks and stone’. Both essays are accompanied by podcasts of Bolland and Jones discussing the wall art (recorded in the respective churches), and are illustrated with Bolland’s photographs.

On the West North East microsite, we’re serialising Matthew Clegg‘s narrative sequence Lost Between Stations (published by Longbarrow Press in 2011). A ‘poem in seven fragments’, it explores the shifting tensions of predicament and place in seven Leeds settings during the 1990s. Each of these ‘fragments’ will be posted on the West North East site (along with their accompanying recordings and films) during October and November. Click here to read the current Lost Between Stations extract.

Our current Featured Poem is Mark Goodwin‘s ‘slate-stepped’ ‘Step From I’, taken from his forthcoming collection Steps (out from Longbarrow Press at the end of November). Click here to read the poem, and to listen to Goodwin’s location recording of ‘Step From I’; click here to visit the new Steps microsite. Osip Mandelstam’s ‘The Ode on Slate’ is offered up in a new translation and short essay by Alistair Noon for the Glasgow Review of Books; the translation and the essay appear here.

Finally, we’ve updated our History page with a selection of films, essays, poems, and photos from the last 10 months; click here to review the Longbarrow year to date.

On 19 September 2014, poet Chris Jones, artist/writer Emma Bolland and Longbarrow Press editor/publisher Brian Lewis visited three churches in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to record three podcasts based on Chris’s Reformation-era sequence Death and the Gallant (featured in the Longbarrow Press anthology The Footing). The first of these podcasts, accompanied by a short essay by Lewis and several photographs by Bolland, is now available on the Longbarrow Blog; click here to read and listen to their reflections on the Catholic art of Newark-on-Trent’s St. Mary Magdalene church. Two further podcasts and short essays (documenting the visits to Pickworth and Corby Glen) will appear on the Longbarrow Blog later in October.

Death and the Gallant is one of two sequences that Chris Jones will present as part of a special performance devised for this year’s Off the Shelf Festival of Writing & Reading.  The Shattered Stars also features a new arrangement of ‘Jigs and Reels’, which harnesses the energy of sets of folk tunes to contemplate themes of family, ceremony and music itself.  The spoken word will be accompanied by live music from Emma Bolland, projected visuals by Paul Evans, and soundscapes by Brian Lewis.  The Shattered Stars takes place at The Shakespeare, 146-148 Gibraltar Street, Sheffield S3 8UB on Sunday 19 October at 8pm (admission £3 on the door).  Also included in this year’s Off the Shelf is the Independent Publishers Book Fair at Sheffield’s Bank Street Arts on Saturday 11 October (11am – 4pm), a varied programme of talks, discussions, readings and more in a day-long celebration of independent publishing.  Many UK publishers will be participating, including Longbarrow Press; a full selection of Longbarrow titles will be available to browse and buy from our stall, and you’re more than welcome to stop for a chat.  Admission to the book fair is free: for more information, please click here.

November sees the publication of Mark Goodwin‘s long-awaited new collection, Steps. ‘Key Ping Ba(p)la(n)ce’, his recent piece for the Longbarrow Blog, anticipates the book’s theme of physical engagement with dynamic landscapes. Click here to read the essay. Further information about the book, a link to the Steps website and details of a launch event will be posted here soon. In the meantime, here’s a preview of three poems from the book, recorded and mixed by Goodwin earlier this year:

Thanks to Emma Bolland and Nikki Clayton for the use of their photographs in this post.