New from Smith/Doorstop
We're delighted to announce the launch of four new pamphlets.
All are available to buy from The Poetry Business, Inpress and selected book shops. (See www.poetrybusiness.co.uk or call 0114 346 3037 for details.) They are £4 each, and Friends of The Poetry Business are entitled to a 25% discount when they order direct from us.
Theatre of Dreams – Mike Di Placido
£4 – 978-1-906613-10-5
An ex-professional footballer, Mike Di Placido’s debut pamphlet takes its title from his
magical trial with Manchester United in the early seventies. His time there is warmly recorded in snapshots of Messrs. Busby, Stiles, Law and, not least, his fourth person of The Trinity, George Best.
After peddling his soccer wares from York City to Australia and New Zealand, Mike returned to study, eventually taking an MA in Poetry while working as a househusband. Mike lives in Seamer, North Yorkshire, with his wife and two daughters.
THEATRE OF DREAMS
3 - NOBBY
The Cliff, Manchester, 1970
Nipping smartly past you
I was soon flat on my arse:
Can’t get away with that ’ere son!
Then after you’d been struck on the head
by a Charlton thunderbolt – a worried Bobby
helping you up – your brilliant simile:
like a fucking bread pudding that bastard!
And later still, when playing out your career
with Middlesborough Reserves, I zipped past you again
one freezing, flood-lit night and scored: honours even.
Not that it mattered.
I mean, three years earlier,
you’d left your mark on me forever
– Mike Di Placido, from Theatre of Dreams (2009)
Singer – Sally Goldsmith
£4 – 978-1-906613-06-8
Sally Goldsmith's collection 'Singer' was a first-stage winner in the 2008 Book & Pamphlet Competition.
'This is the world as we almost know it: risky and seductive.' – David Harsent
YOU'LL KNOW HER
for sure, when she comes at you,
out of her bed of clanking trains,
hooting seas and half-finished nightmares.
You’ll know her by the ragbag of scraps and string,
her rabbit paw for luck,
the dead bumble bee in a cough drop tin.
You’ll know her by her gripey belly, her bleat,
the stick legs and fluttering hands,
her bones rattling like bikes on roads to factories,
the way she never steps on cracks,
always does what she’s told
and says sorry sorry sorry.
You’ll know her by the safe place
she keeps her counted knick-knacks,
her cupboard shining with books,
the corners she hides in,
her hoards of pencils and cut up comics,
the pedal car with one pedal and the still spinning top.
You’ll know her by her accidents at other girls’ parties
and that she might hang out the window,
might smack her brother one with a plastic spade.
– Sally Goldsmith, from Singer (2009)
Skylight – Carole Bromley
£4 – 978-1-906613-08-2
Carole Bromley's collection 'Skylight' was one of the first-stage winners in the 2008 Book & Pamphlet Competition.
Carole Bromley lives in York where she tutors in Creative Writing for the University of York. Her poems have been published widely in magazines and anthologies, and she has been highly placed in a number of competitions. Her pamphlet ‘Unscheduled Halt’ was a winner in the 2004 Poetry Business competition.
‘Wry, funny, clearly-written, and – especially when their perspectives are long – startlingly fresh and new’ – Kate Clanchy
‘Heartening and haunting’ – Michael Laskey
A JEWISH GIANT AT HOME WITH HIS PARENTS
after Diane Arbus
Ever wanted to eat your folks
like icing dolls off a wedding cake?
I could sweep them up like dust,
shake them onto the flower bed.
They keep the curtains closed all day
to stop the carpet fading;
they don’t like my nose, my hair,
my enormous feet.
Mum keeps a roomful of toys
as if I might regress,
looks up at me sometimes
like I’m some kind of ogre,
while dad stands, hands in pockets,
looking at his shoes,
diminished, defeated,
not knowing where to start.
I want to stretch out my arms
and shake the foundations,
stride off in my seven league boots
and find a ten foot woman.
– Carole Bromley, from Skylight (2009)
Party Piece – Anna Woodford
£4 – 978-1-906613-07-5
Anna Woodford's collection 'Party Piece' was one of the first-stage winners in the 2008 Book & Pamphlet Competition.
Anna Woodford lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her pamphlet ‘Trailer’ (Five Leaves, 2007) was a Poetry Book Society Choice.
She has received a major Leverhulme Award, an Eric Gregory Award, an Arvon/Jerwood Apprenticeship, a Hawthorden Fellowship and a residency at the Blue Mountain Centre (New York). She has a PhD from Newcastle University.
THE TREE
When I raise my foot
off the ground, in line
with all the other women
and the couple of men,
I am expressing myself
simply as a woman
with a raised foot.
When I raise my hands
above my head, they are
swept up in a movement
of hands: of wrists and
of fingers. I hold
my position on an un
equal footing in the yoga
group. At the far
corner of the room, shoes
cool their heels, our coats
are left hanging
while we turn – in our minds’
eyes – into trees. We are
posturing as a forest
together though December hard-
hits the window, our right
knees are unbending, our green
fingers are budding. The odd
rumble from a trunk, a
tumbling foot reveals
the nature of this spot.
We are only human, it is
written all over our faces.
As a tree, I make a
good woman standing
on one leg. I know
what I must look like
and I’m happy with that.
– Anna Woodford, from 'Party Piece' (2009)
The Poetry Business receives financial assistance from Arts Council England.
