irena(at)in-words.co.uk
“And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”
(‘God’s Grandeur’)
A big thank you to Graham and Sue, and also to Fiona Moore and Mick Delap for an evening I sadly had to miss. Wonderful feedback from all those who attended.
in-words last event before the summer break promises to be another intriguing and captivating mixture of voices. Read on and you’ll see why…
Free as always. All welcome.
Telltale Press (telltalepress.co.uk) is a poets’ publishing collective founded in 2014 by Robin Houghton and Peter Kenny. Three more poets joined the press, including Sarah Barnsley. Catherine Smith joined them as Associate Editor and Carol Ann Duffy agreed to be their patron. Their aim was to ‘seize the means of poetry production’: they published each other’s debut pamphlets, which served as ‘calling cards’ to help get their work out there and win the attention of publishers. It certainly worked, since all members went on to have collections published by other poetry presses. Between 2014 and 2018 Telltale also hosted numerous readings in London, Brighton and Lewes featuring guest poets, culminating in an anthology, Truths. Telltale Press is currently on hiatus while considering ways to take it forward.
Robin Houghton (robinhoughtonpoetry.co.uk) is the author of four poetry pamphlets including Why? And Other Questions (Live Canon, 2020) which was a winner of the Live Canon Pamphlet Competition 2019. Her work is published in many magazines including Mslexia, The Rialto and Poetry News, and is widely anthologised. She was awarded the Hamish Canham Prize from the Poetry Society in 2013. She co-founded Telltale Press with Peter Kenny and their current collaboration is the podcast Planet Poetry (planetpoetrypodcast.com) begun during the 2020 pandemic. Robin compiles and distributes a free spreadsheet of poetry magazines submission details, updated every quarter. Her first full collection The Mayday Diaries was published by Pindrop Press in May 2025.
Peter Kenny (peterkenny.co.uk) co-hosts the Planet Poetry podcast with Robin Houghton. Poetry publications include Mariscat Sampler One (Mariscat Press 2024), Snow (Hedgehog Poetry Press 2024) Sin Cycle (e.ratio, New York 2020) The Nightwork (Telltale Press 2014) and A Guernsey Double (2010, Guernsey Arts Commission). His dark fiction short stories have appeared in Supernatural Tales, Horla, Frogmore Papers – and US publications. His six comedy plays, including A Glass of Nothing, have been performed in London, Brighton and Edinburgh.
Sarah Barnsley’s most recent book is The Thoughts, (Smith|Doorstop, 2022) and her edition of Mary Barnard’s Complete Poems and Selected Translations will be published in June 2025 by SUNY Press. Sarah is currently writing a collection of poems on queerness and the therapeutic encounter.
