Longbarrow Press

Following the presentation of Pilgrimage: a walk through The Footing at Sheffield’s Bank Street Arts earlier in June, we’ve uploaded an audio recording of the first of the evening’s three parts. A specially curated performance focusing on the relationship between movement and memorial, Pilgrimage included readings from all seven poets featured in The Footing: Angelina Ayers, James Caruth, Mark Goodwin, Rob Hindle, Andrew Hirst, Chris Jones and Fay Musselwhite. Part One: Three Night Walks: III (Andrew Hirst); The Bench (Angelina Ayers); Death and the Gallant I: The Adoration of the Magi (Chris Jones); From from a St Juliot to Beyond a Beeny: Kilometre 2 (Mark Goodwin); Parish (James Caruth).

Pilgrimage was preceded by Chinese Lanterns, a bold new interpretation of a recent sequence by Matthew Clegg (featured in his collection West North East), devised and performed by Clegg and Andrew Hirst. Here’s a short film of the two poets negotiating the streets of 21st century Hillsborough (via the ‘displaced’ personae of the classical Chinese poets Li Po and Tu Fu) in ‘Moving with Thought’:

On the Longbarrow Blog, Brian Lewis reflects on the five-year development of the Longbarrow Press anthology The Footing, and the central roles of craft and collaboration in determining the routes toward (and beyond) the book: click here to read ‘The pace of The Footing‘ (originally presented at the Midsummer Poetry Festival Symposium on Anthologies and Anthologising). The anthology also provides us with our new ‘Featured Poem’: James Caruth‘s ‘Memorial’ (featured in his sequence ‘Tithes’, with which The Footing opens). Click here to read the poem; you can also listen to Caruth reading the poem (on location in Bowcroft Cemetery, Stannington, Sheffield) below.

Midsummer is a month-long poetry festival (6 – 28 June) at Bank Street Arts (32-40 Bank Street, Sheffield S1 2DS), featuring a varied programme of performances, workshops, a symposium and an exhibition. Longbarrow Press has devised two special events for the evening of Saturday 14 June:

Matthew Clegg and Andrew Hirst present Chinese Lanterns | 6.30 – 7.30pm
Matthew Clegg presents a one-off event focusing on new arrangements of poems from his sequence ‘Chinese Lanterns’ (featured in his collection West North East), in which the classical Chinese poet Li Po finds himself resurrected and at large in 21st Century Hillsborough. Clegg will be joined by poet Andrew Hirst (aka photographer Karl Hurst) for a memorable evening of ritual, performance and multimedia. Listen to the ‘Chinese Lanterns’ audio trailer:

Pilgrimage: a walk through The Footing with Angelina Ayers, James Caruth, Mark Goodwin, Rob Hindle, Andrew Hirst, Chris Jones, Fay Musselwhite
8.00 – 9.00pm
A specially-devised presentation of poems from the walking-themed anthology The Footing (with appearances from all 7 poets featured in the anthology), with the accent on memory and memorial. This crafted, continuous performance, weaving live readings with ambient soundscapes and projected images with short films, offers a unique route through the landscapes of the book: a trance and a traverse. Watch the film trailer:

Rob Hindle will also present a new arrangement of his Spanish Civil War poem-drama Yoke and Arrows at Bank Street Arts earlier in the evening (5pm-6pm). All 3 events are £4 each (£3 concessions); click here for more information (and to order tickets through Eventbrite). The Midsummer symposium on ‘Anthologies and Anthologising in Contemporary Poetry’ takes place at Bank Street Arts on Friday 20 June (11am-4.30pm); speakers will include Chris Jones and Brian Lewis of Longbarrow Press. Click here for more information about the symposium.

Two new Longbarrow Press films were screened as part of the recent Laugharne Castle Poetry and Film Festival. The first of these, Matthew Clegg‘s Fugue #3, focuses on the fields east of the Leeds suburb of Crossgates, the setting for Clegg’s poem ‘Because I was Nobody’; the second, Angelina Ayers‘ Aseptic Technique, sets a recording of Ayers’ poem (made in the wind-strafed lift area of a hospital) to a spare visual treatment (punctuated by two brief stills by photographer Karl Hurst). Watch the films below: