A event on Thursday 11th December. The event starts at 19:00.
Triple launch of new poetry collections by three local poets: Lauren Mason's *Rust Canyon* (V Press), Fran Pope's *Holy Blue* (Kulvert Press), and Dan Eltringham's *My Discovery Of* (Kulvert Press).
Mason's *Rust Canyon* & Eltringham's *My Discovery Of* are both verse travelogues in the tradition of Americana: sceptical, distanced, and critical of the complicities of US power and empire, yet inflected by a difficult affection for American places and artists, from O'Keefe in Santa Fe to the rusting grain silos of Buffalo, New York. Fran Pope's *Holy Blue*, meanwhile, is a beguilingly odd, delicate exploration of the bounds of lyric subjectivity.
On *Holy Blue*:
The poetry of 'Holy Blue' is airy and open, ruminating on the breath. As it travels through present, past and future, between fragments of a remembered world, a form of poetic expression unravels itself - "knowing opens like a wing". Pope's poetry is sincere yet experimental, and it invites its audience to participate in full.
On *Rust Canyon*:
“Like the painter Georgia O’Keeffe (a presiding spirit in these poems), Lauren Mason tracks beauty and peril in the vast landscapes of canyon, desert, river, and transposes these terrains to the contour of bodies in passion, in rest, in (re)birth. Such locations – actual and known, but also taken from the world of dream – are vividly rendered in Mason’s assured voice. These poems are diamond-like in their brilliance and multifaceted reflections, but they are also sharp and tough. It is always exciting to encounter a debut pamphlet, but this is one I am particularly excited to see in the world.” --Tamar Yoseloff
On *My Discovery Of*:
"As the winds of fascism and late-capitalist crisis sweep the US, what a deep comfort to see the country through Dan Eltringham’s perceptive eyes. I love these poems’ various singing, as they take in radiant particularities of deserts, mountains, lakes and rivers, landscapes shaped by waves of colonization and trade, the “hypervisible & invisible,” histories of revolt and histories of wildfire, moments when history might have been otherwise. These poems, full of grass and barbed wire, grain silos and anarchists, capture the beauty and tragedy of this settler-colonial project and the land that it has shaped, that shapes us in return. I’m grateful for the complexity and clarity of Dan’s vision, grateful he’s touched down here and brought back these accounts." -- MC Hyland
Bios:
Lauren Mason based in Bristol, where she works as an NHS specialist nurse and mindfulness teacher. Her creative practice includes music, poetry and photography. Her debut poetry pamphlet 'Rust Canyon' is out now with V Press. Mason's poems have been published widely in journals including The Interpreter's House, Finished Creatures, and Perverse; and anthologies including the Ginkgo Prize.
Fran Pope is a writer, translator and music journalist. She works as music editor for Freestyle Bristol, as well as writing reviews and features for other publications. She is particularly interested in electronic music and feminism. She has published two poetry collections, *The Brazen Forecast* (Cactus Press) and *Quarters* (Ekstasis Editions). Fran also runs the Waxing Crescent spoken word night at the Clifton Community Bookshop.
Dan Eltringham is a writer, editor, teacher, translator and bookseller. He is co-owner of EBB with Andres Anwandter and co-editor of Girasol Press with Leire Barrera. With Leire, Dan co-translated the latest Girasol publication, *Inside / Desde la carcel: Prison Poetry from Argentina, 1975-81*.
Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio)
Mason's *Rust Canyon* & Eltringham's *My Discovery Of* are both verse travelogues in the tradition of Americana: sceptical, distanced, and critical of the complicities of US power and empire, yet inflected by a difficult affection for American places and artists, from O'Keefe in Santa Fe to the rusting grain silos of Buffalo, New York. Fran Pope's *Holy Blue*, meanwhile, is a beguilingly odd, delicate exploration of the bounds of lyric subjectivity.
On *Holy Blue*:
The poetry of 'Holy Blue' is airy and open, ruminating on the breath. As it travels through present, past and future, between fragments of a remembered world, a form of poetic expression unravels itself - "knowing opens like a wing". Pope's poetry is sincere yet experimental, and it invites its audience to participate in full.
On *Rust Canyon*:
“Like the painter Georgia O’Keeffe (a presiding spirit in these poems), Lauren Mason tracks beauty and peril in the vast landscapes of canyon, desert, river, and transposes these terrains to the contour of bodies in passion, in rest, in (re)birth. Such locations – actual and known, but also taken from the world of dream – are vividly rendered in Mason’s assured voice. These poems are diamond-like in their brilliance and multifaceted reflections, but they are also sharp and tough. It is always exciting to encounter a debut pamphlet, but this is one I am particularly excited to see in the world.” --Tamar Yoseloff
On *My Discovery Of*:
"As the winds of fascism and late-capitalist crisis sweep the US, what a deep comfort to see the country through Dan Eltringham’s perceptive eyes. I love these poems’ various singing, as they take in radiant particularities of deserts, mountains, lakes and rivers, landscapes shaped by waves of colonization and trade, the “hypervisible & invisible,” histories of revolt and histories of wildfire, moments when history might have been otherwise. These poems, full of grass and barbed wire, grain silos and anarchists, capture the beauty and tragedy of this settler-colonial project and the land that it has shaped, that shapes us in return. I’m grateful for the complexity and clarity of Dan’s vision, grateful he’s touched down here and brought back these accounts." -- MC Hyland
Bios:
Lauren Mason based in Bristol, where she works as an NHS specialist nurse and mindfulness teacher. Her creative practice includes music, poetry and photography. Her debut poetry pamphlet 'Rust Canyon' is out now with V Press. Mason's poems have been published widely in journals including The Interpreter's House, Finished Creatures, and Perverse; and anthologies including the Ginkgo Prize.
Fran Pope is a writer, translator and music journalist. She works as music editor for Freestyle Bristol, as well as writing reviews and features for other publications. She is particularly interested in electronic music and feminism. She has published two poetry collections, *The Brazen Forecast* (Cactus Press) and *Quarters* (Ekstasis Editions). Fran also runs the Waxing Crescent spoken word night at the Clifton Community Bookshop.
Dan Eltringham is a writer, editor, teacher, translator and bookseller. He is co-owner of EBB with Andres Anwandter and co-editor of Girasol Press with Leire Barrera. With Leire, Dan co-translated the latest Girasol publication, *Inside / Desde la carcel: Prison Poetry from Argentina, 1975-81*.
Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio)