Telltale Poets

It was warm at West Greenwich Library last night – in every way. A couple of fans ensured the right temperature in the room, and the warmth of the audience and of course of the three featured poets was palpable and comfortable.

Robin Houghton, Peter Kenny and Sarah Barnsley are the core part of Telltale, an innovative poetry collective (temporarily on hiatus) that a few years ago ‘seized the means of poetry production’. More about them and it below.

The first half of the evening saw Robin, Peter and Sarah read from their published books – in Robin’s case, a very recent one, The Mayday Diaries (Pindrop Press, May 2025), so a virtual launch…

Such different voices, moods, modes and styles, they had us spellbound. The texts, as always, were projected on the Library screen; and there were images as well, essential to understand the ekphrastic poems better. Or, in two of Sarah’s poems, their actual structure.

After the interval Robin, Peter and Sarah spoke about the birth of Telltale, the philosophy behind it and its successful history. Also of the poetry podcast that Robin and Peter launched during lockdown, and which is still going on, involving many known names in the ‘business’. It’s called ‘Planet Poetry’, do check it out!

I’ll write some more if I can before I go on holiday and after I’ve fully digested the wonderful poetic fare of last night.

In the meantime, here are some photos and more information about each poet, their publications and Telltale.

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.

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 they consider ways to take it forward.

Maggie & Maggie

An engaged and enthralled audience were treated last night to the words and worlds brought to us in Greenwich by Maggie Brookes-Butt and Maggie Harris.

Maggie B-B was presenting her new collection, published in January by Greenwich Exchange. Wish contains new and selected poems (the latter taken from her six previous collections). The main theme of the new poems is grandmotherhood, and brought smiles and tears and many a-ha moments of recognition – turning everyday language into exquisite poetry by her sharpness of observation and unexpected images. I have the book now, and can’t wait to read it through. If you want a copy at a special price, go to greenex.co.uk

Maggie H read from her latest poetry collection, I Sing to the Greenhearts (Seren, 2025) and an excerpt from her memoir, Kiskadee Girl (Cane Arrow Press, 2024) – and we were immediately transported to her native Guyana. Dazzling colours and sounds (from trees, birds, people and the river that featured so prominently in Maggie’s early life) and yet more grandmothers (I’m so glad they made such a strong appearance!) were vividly portrayed in language that sometimes picked up local accents and spellings. Beautifully read, exciting, evocative, nostalgic but never sentimental – I wish I could have listened for much longer….

This was one leg of the two Maggies’ reading tour, and I wish them every success. They deserve it.

Here’s more about them:

Maggie Brookes-Butt has been writing all her life, as a journalist, BBC TV producer, creative writing academic and Royal Literary Fund Fellow. Her books include six poetry collections as Maggie Butt and two historical novels as Maggie Brookes. As well as being a writer she is a compulsive reader, hopeful gardener, dreadful cook, besotted grandmother and a Londoner to the bone, though she loves to swim in the sea. Maggie will be reading from Wish, her newly published volume of new and selected poems (Greenwich Exchange, 2025). It gathers poems from Maggie’s six previous collections – about the strength of women, concern for our planet, and hope in the power of love – alongside bitter-sweet new poems about the joys and fears of a grandmother in this troubled, vulnerable and precious world.

As well as being published widely in many journals, Maggie Harris has plenty of awards to her credit: the Guyana Prize for Literature not once but twice; The Commonwealth Short Story Regional Prize and the Wales Poetry Award.She is a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund and has worked as Creative Writing tutor, Reader Development Worker and International Teaching Fellow. Her poem ‘Canterbury’ is an Art installation in the city’s Westgate Gardens, and ‘Lit by Fire’, her poem  about the North Foreland Lighthouse, was commissioned by the BBC. She has read her work internationally and has collaborated with artists across genres since 1990, resulting in some of her work being set to music. Her poem ‘This is Not a Gospel Song’ can be heard and watched on YouTube. In 2024 she was awarded an Arts Council grant towards revisiting Guyana and its rain forest. Maggie read from her 11^th book, I Sing to the Greenhearts (SEREN, 2025), and from her memoir Kiskadee Girl (Cane Arrow Press, 2024).