'#2PoetryAnthology' (Vanguard Editions, 2016)

Jean Atkin / Polly Atkin / Clarissa Aykroyd / Catherine Ayres / Helen Calcutt / Zelda Chappel / John Clegg / Joey Connolly / Ian Duhig / Cathy Galvin / Roz Goddard / Robert Harper / Sophie Herxheimer / Keith Hutson / Victoria Kennefick / Charles Lauder Jr / Pippa Little / Alison Lock / Roy Marshall / John McCullough / Kim Moore / p a morbid / Dan O'Brien / Bobby Parker / Alasdair Paterson / Rebecca Perry / Wendy Pratt / Peter Raynard / Autumn Richardson / Isabel Rogers / Denise Saul / Tara Skurtu / Martha Sprackland / Kelley Swain / Maria Taylor / Kate Wakeling / Judith Willson / Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch / Tamar Yoseloff

Introduction

Welcome to #2PoetryAnthology, the latest in a series of anthologies that compile  work written by writers who have read at Vanguard Readings. There is no overarching theme to these anthologies, they are just made up of work that really spoke to me at Vanguard. I see the anthologies more as exhibition catalogues, recording the performances at Vanguard in print, simply designed with the minimum of fuss so that the work is given space to speak for itself.
    This selection includes a hymn, a loopy villanelle, several sonnets (including Tammy Yoseloff’s ‘Oulipo’ sonnet), a mirror poem, a vector and a Q&A riddle. The poems take us from the top of Mont Blanc to the deep blue sea, to childhood scenes in Texas and Scarsdale NY, from a hospital in Newcastle to the wilds of Kilmahon cemetery. There are poems about Hildegard of Bingen, Freddie Parrot-Face Davies and Sherlock Holmes. Water, and the women who rise from and fall into it, seems to be a running theme (sorry).
    Several poems have won or have been highly commended in prizes and several are taken from collections that have been nominated for prizes. The ethos of Vanguard Readings, however, is to promote new work as well as already published work and, in that spirit, I’m particularly pleased to be including fine new poems by Jean Atkin, Helen Calcutt, Ian Duhig, Roy Marshall, Peter Raynard, Isabel Rogers and a four-page tour de force from Bobby Parker.
    Thank you for buying this anthology and supporting a small independent press. And thanks to our loyal audience for your continued support of Vanguard Readings at its regular monthly spot in south London. If you can’t make it to London, never fear—there is a #VanguardOnTour event coming your way soon. At the time of going to press, the tour has stopped off at Grasmere, Birmingham and Hay-on-Wye and more stops are planned for Norwich, Leeds and Manchester and even Cork and Belfast. See you there!
Richard Skinner

pp.63 / £5 incl. p&p (please add £4 for outside the UK)
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