Bring Down the Haus - Bristol poetry showcase with Kulvert and Août Fecit

We are delighted to welcome two independent, Bristol based poetry publishers to bookhaus for a showcase to launch three new collections. We will be joined by Kulvert and Août Fecit to celebrate the launch of these new collections:-

Dan Eltringham - After X: Untranslations (Août Fecit, 2026)

Samatar Elmi- Reclamations (Août Fecit, 2026) & Agen Bien Fou (Kulvert, 2026)

Olly J. Taylor- Darlo Salt Gun Massacre (Kulvert, 2026)

After X:

"The task of the translator, in these 'untranslations', goes guerrilla, moving through accidental landscapes all of its own. This is a joyful, revolutionary poetics in which Welsh, Nahuatl and Occitan glimmer at the edges of an English that is swerved by Spanish – and always at serious play. Dan Eltringham's generous and generative writing creates new solidarities and forms of imagination that couldn't be more necessary here and now." Zoë Skoulding

“Dan Eltringham’s After X is a transformative work in translation, marking the in-place-of where poetry goes after, and again. Eltringham follows language down—to the said, to the before, to work, doing, History, nothing—and we, fortunately, follow after.” Rebecca Kosick

Dan Eltringham is a writer, bookseller, scholar, translator, editor and teacher. Co-owner of East Bristol Books, he also co-edits Girasol Press. Dan has published prize-winning critical books and essays, poetry, translations, and collaborations with artists. His translations have appeared in Poetry Theory Review, and many other publications. His poetry collections include My Discovery Of (Kulvert, 2025), Cairn Almanac (Hesterglock Press, 2017), Mystics (Girasol Press, 2014) and Ithaca (Dow House Press, 2014). His forthcoming book Off Set What Happens is out on Kulvert next year. 

Agen Bien Fou:

Agen Bien Fou is a radical collection of poems, combining elegiac poetry through the personal with the political, confronting systemic oppression, imperialism, modern warfare and global complicity. Dedicated to the children of Gaza and the enduring spirit of resistance, Elmi addresses genocides and takes to account the billionaires that fund them, through powerful and moving poems charged with the revolutionary spirit. With the rawness and contemporary outrage of poems such as The Genocide Will Not Be Televised, that pulse through the collection, Elmi calls to witness the horrors of history as it unfolds before our eyes, the saturation of sufferance and the hope in realising our own humanity. Agen Bien Fou is an important and profound exploration of cultural survival, grief, and the defiant human spirit in the face of devastation.

Samatar Elmi is an award-winning poet and musician. He is the author of Portrait of Colossus (flipped eye press, 2021), The Epic of Cader Idris (Bloomsbury, 2024), Reclamations: Disregard Prior Prompt (Aout Fecit, 2026), 26 Poems for Cash with Sam Telford (Kulvert, 2026) and Agen Bien Fou (Kulvert, 2026). He is the winner of the 2021 Geoffrey Dearmer Prize. His poetry has featured in Poetry magazine, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Magma, and Iota, amongst others, and anthologised in More Fiya, Filigree, After Plath, and The Echoing Gallery. 

Darlo Salt Gun Massacre:

Darlo Salt Gun Massacre’ is Olly J. Taylor’s follow-up to his debut collection 'First Guinness In A New City’ (Kulvert, 2024). The poems are rooted in the realism and absurdities of everyday life in modern Britain, portrayed through the critical but humorous eyes of a poet and fly-on-the-wall observer. It displays dark satire alongside erudite vulnerability. Taylor embraces, venerates and chronicles the awkwardness and social realism of everyday people, and their human fallibilities that take place in waiting rooms, unruly pubs and social gatherings, where the ordinary becomes centre stage for poetry. He paints a vivid picture of Britain, and through an honest voice and choice wit, he captures a bittersweet drama of its people and at times himself.

Olly J. Taylor is a Brighton-based poet, raised in Darlington in the northeast. He is a Creative Writing MA Graduate from Durham University, who performs poetry regularly. He was shortlisted as a finalist for the Roundhouse Poetry Slam in 2026, and has been featured in Radge Magazine (Darlington) amongst others. He runs his own poetry night and performs alongside the Brighton collective ‘Two-and-a-half Pigeons.’ They have performed at The Brunswick and The Rossi Bar in Brighton, and also The Poetry Cafe in London. He is the author of the poetry collection ‘First Guinness In A New City’, Kulvert, 2024.

Tickets cost £7 and include a glass of wine or a soft drink. Presented by bookhaus.