Arachne 10

December 1, 2022

Arachne Press is celebrating 10 years as a small, independent publisher of award-winning short fiction, award winning poetry and (very) select non-fiction, for adults and children. And on Tuesday November 29, Arachne’s Cherry Potts co-hosted a reading to celebrate this amazing achievement and to launch recent collections – the most recent being the wonderful, evocative Routes by Rhiya Pau, British-born poet of Indian heritage, winner of the Eric Gregory Award 2022. The book celebrates and chronicles the long journey Rhiya’s family undertook over lands, languages and cultures to finally land in Britain 50 years ago. To quote Sarah Howe, the 2022 Eric Gregory Awards judge, “This is a collection in which routes and roots tug against one another…[…] This is a work of humane intelligence, formal experiment and linguistic verve that promises much.” And I want to add the word ‘moving’, ringing as it does absolutely true in its emotional universality.

This last sentence is also completely appropriate to the poetry of Claire Booker. Claire’s poetry collection, A Pocketful of Chalk, was published by Arachne Press in July 2022. In it light, sea and sky are always present, reminders of loss and sorrow while consoling and reaffirming. The title of the collection reflects Claire’s living environment, the wonderful South Downs.

Despite being certified as disabled with Ehlers-Danlos at the age of 16, Jennifer A McGowan has led several exciting and creative lives. Latterly, poetry saved her life when she nearly died from Covid, and some of her poems in How to be a Tarot Card (or a Teenager) (Arachne, October 2022) echo that time, while others wittily transport us backwards and forwards to different, and always fascinating, places.

And talking of different and fascinating places, what about Michelle Penn‘s dystopian island, the protagonist of her book-length poem, Paper Crusade, published by Arachne in June 2022. The poem, with its interesting format and fonts, but above all its fable- and nightmare-like characters – a veritable Tempest through the looking glass – truly transported us elsewhere.

All poems were beautifully and clearly read. If you want to revisit them, buy the books at https://arachnepress.com/shop/Poetry-c12178370

Many thanks to Cherry Potts for co-hosting (actually doing most of the work!) and congratulations to her for 10 years of great publishing. All Arachne publications have stunning covers, so much so that there will be an exhibition of them, and their production process, at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery in Greenwich in mid-late January. Well worth a visit!

And many thanks to the audience for turning up on the night of the England v Wales football match…

See you all in the New Year. Very best wishes and Seasons Greetings to you and yours.

Events

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4 at West Greenwich Library: ‘A Better Future’ – poetry from Jacqueline Saphra and Sue Rose. Music on harp by Lucia Fusi. An event to remember and honour all victims of hatred and discrimination. 7.30 (please note later starting time). All welcome.

Jacqueline Saphra is a poet, playwright and activist. She is the author of nine plays, five chapbooks and five poetry collections. The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (flipped eye 2011) was nominated for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women (The Emma Press 2014), illustrated by Mark Andrew Webber and set to music by Benjamin Tassie won the Saboteur Award for Best Collaborative Work. Jacqueline’s T.S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted collection All My Mad Mothers (2017) and her subsequent one, Dad, Remember You are Dead (2019) were both published by Nine Arches Press. Her newest play, The Noises was shortlisted for a Standing Ovation Award. Jacqueline’s collection, One Hundred Lockdown Sonnets (2021) was followed by Velvel’s Violin in July 2023 (Nine Arches Press), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and BBC Radio 4 Extra Poetry Book of the Month. Her latest project is the libretto for ‘A Kind of Haunting’, an opera by British Jewish composer Michael Zev Gordon, which will be staged at The Barbican in March 2025. Jacqueline is a founder member of Poets for the Planet and has taught in many different settings including The Arvon Foundation, The Poetry School, Oxford University Summer School and the MsT at Cambridge University. 

Sue Rose is a poet and literary translator working in Kent. As a translator, her work spans many genres, including libretti, novels and a series of books about the adventures of France’s answer to Harry Potter, Oksa Pollock. In 2004, she completed an MPhil in Writing with a thesis on the theory and practice of the translation of poetry. As a poet, her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies. In 2008, she won the Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition and in 2009, the International Troubadour Poetry Prize. Sue is the author of three collections from Cinnamon Press – From the Dark Room, The Cost of Keys and Scion. Heart Archives, a chapbook of sonnets paired with her own photos, was published by Hercules Editions in 2014 and Tonewood, poems in response to black and white photos of trees by photographer Lawrence Impey, was published by Eaglesfield Editions in 2019. Her fourth collection, Aleph Bet, a sequence of poems exploring the Hebrew language, accompanied by some of her own photos, will be published later this year by Cinnamon Press. Sue plays tennis at club league level and is also a keen pickleball player, having won several gold and silver medals in international and national competitions in her age group.

TUESDAY MARCH 4 at West Greenwich Library – a special evening on the poetry and life of Geoffrey Grigson (1905-1985) and his contemporaries. With Caroline Grigson, Graham High, Blake Morrison and others.

TUESDAY MARCH 25 at West Greenwich Library – ‘Mica Press launch: new poetry from Rosie Johnston, Michael Vince and Antony Johae.’ With Nayma Chanchoun, Michael Foley and Leslie Bell.

TUESDAY MAY 13 at West Greenwich Library – ‘Maggie and Maggie’. Same name, different voices: poetry from Maggie Butt and Maggie Harris.

TUESDAY JUNE 24 at West Greenwich Library – Poetry with Robin Houghton and friends.