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FROM LIVERPOOL - EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE 2008

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CAUGHT IN THE NET -  FEATURED PUBLISHER  - CINNAMON PRESS

Editor - Jim Bennett

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Introduction by Jim Bennett

Hello.  Welcome to CITN 34. This edition marks the start of a new series of Caught in the Net this time basing each issue on a print publisher that is committed to publishing poetry.  This month the subject is Cinnamon Press which is situated in North Wales.  If you are a publisher and feel that you should be represented in this series or

You can join the CITN  at - http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/index.htm and following the links for Caught in the Net.

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Jan Fortune-Wood Cinnamon Press’ commissioning editor is Jan Fortune-Wood. Originally from Redcar, Teesside, Jan read Theology at did a PhD in feminist Christology. She also has and an MA in Creative Writing and has written books on alternative parenting and home education as well as being a novelist and poet. Her first novel, A Good Life, and first collection, Particles of Life, are published by Bluechrome and she has a novel forthcoming in 2007 and is working on a second poetry collection, Knot-work.

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CONTENTS

1 - INTRODUCTION - CINNAMON PRESS
2 - SELECTIONS FROM BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CINNAMON

from IMPOSSIBLE OBJECTS - BILL GREENWELL

 

Recorded History

The Sound of Rain on a Window

Coincidences

from SOUND OF MOUNTAIN - BRUCE ACKERLEY

Polar Incursions

Music for Doppelgangers

Glyn Ceiriog Winter

from PIECES - JOHN TANNER

Weightless

Slow-mo. Slow-mo.

Sun Shaft on Tal-y-fan

from past issues of COFFEE HOUSE POETRY

 

March

Rainy First Days

An everyday story of mortgages

Vigil, Drumnadrochit

You Might Want to Picture This

3. SUBMISSIONS TO CINNAMON PRESS

4 - Afterword
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You can purchase these books on-line through Amazon at Poetry Kit's Bookshop - http://www.poetrykit.org/howto.htm 

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1.  INTRODUCTION

 

 Caught in the Net – Cinnamon Press

 Cinnamon Press is a relatively young, but fast growing press in North Wales with an expanding poetry list from writers in Wales, across the UK and internationally.  In our first year we’ve had a sell-out launch at Hay Festival for the anthology The Lie of the Land – 65 Welsh poets including writers like Owen Sheers & Pascale Petit, coming together in a book to support the Meningitis Trust. We’ve published around ten titles this year, but will expand to publish more than twenty-five titles next year. We’re about to launch a series of New Welsh voices and, in the next year we will publish more new Welsh voices as well as collections from poets in every part of the UK and collections from Ireland, South Africa, New York and Macao, China.  

We only publish books that we love and three of our recent publications are good examples.

 

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2 - SELECTIONS FROM BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CINNAMON

   Impossible Objects - Bill Greenwell

Short-listed for the Forward Prize for best first collection, this brilliant debut invites us to see the world from a new perspective. The former New Statesman poet in residence “does things with language you didn’t know were possible…” says Selima Hill. Carol Rumens write,. “A verbal magician working with the precision and economy of a master cartographer… The writing is witty and tender, delicate and tough. It consistently charms us out of the every-day… “

Bill Greenwell was born in 1952, in Sunderland. After studying at Oxford, he moved to Exeter to gain a teaching qualification.  He taught at Exeter College, becoming Head of English and Head of Performing Arts, Languages and Computing. He teaches creative writing at the University of Exeter, the Open University and University College, Falmouth

 

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Recorded History

 

Face it. The borders are lined, are inked

with visible precision. This was the farmer’s

leg of land, that hump the fold of stocking.

 

Sheep grazing on the map. Some shading

where they buried the cholera. That scratch

is where the sea sluiced the steeples.

 

I heard the scrawl of your throat, the way

it haggled the banns, how it sucked psalms

through a blackened snaggle of teeth.

 

Sat with the candle. The smoke withering

the air, shaping it. Outspread like damaged hands,

these scapes, these tatters. Isthmus,

 

peninsula, the straits across your forehead

as dangerous as a death. Tithes were paid

here, prompt as a dull sulk. Sign, scritch.

 

The trees here have been stripped of leaf,

and the barley brewed. Moss obscures the last

vestige of your illegible children.

 

The coast is unclear. Your crimped image

is stiff behind thick glass, under the balderdash

in the loft. I know you. And I know you not.

 

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The Sound of Rain on a Window

 

It’s a sudden banter,

the arrival of several riddles at once,

nineteen people standing

in the road below, aiming

handfuls of pitted pebbles to see

if you’re in.

 

They guess you’re sleeping,

missed the bus, wrote

the rendezvous on the wrong calendar.

 

You wake

just as the sunlight hurries

back through the glass, asking

apologies, and painting

streaks where the rain

rattled your nerve. You stand

 

in the street, blinking,

throwing lonely stones

at your own window,

wondering whether you’re in.

 

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Coincidences

 

There’s a light on somewhere. There’s a light

on somewhere else. There’s a light

breeze blowing. Coincidence. That both

cabins should be occupied by a barbershop

quartet called Close Shave.

 

On the strop of nine, a man called Man

walks over the grave

of a chandler called Wick. Coincidence.

That they were both at school

in Bury, in 1976. It was a hot summer.

 

The sun beats its tantrum on the lid

of a corrugated cow-shed. It is filled

with sheep. Coincidence. Last week, I ate

a chump chop and some sirloin steak.

Mixed grill. No sausages.

 

An old banger turns up at a garage,

and explodes with laughter. The smoke

clears. Coincidence. The mechanic

is wearing a bonnet, and I’m wearing

a hood. Which one is American?

 

Two planes fire 500 shells

at a Middle East seaside. The road’s

red. Coincidence. They’re not

writing poems in the sky,

and neither am I.

 

© Bill Greenwell

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   Sound of Mountain - Bruce Ackerley

 

This début poetry collection from Bruce Ackerley, winner of the first Cinnamon Press poetry collection award, is a delight from start to finish. The poems are finely crafted, uncluttered and full of resonances that leave the reader with more to discover on re-reading. The themes are those that recur again and again: love, life, nature, relationships, loss… but the ways of framing the themes are always refreshing, full of surprises, depth: words replete with their own music.

Bruce was born in 1967, grew up on a Cheshire dairy farm and studied in Nottingham where he now works in social housing.

 

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Polar Incursions

 

Mid-March: mute and tortoise-slow

the dark has whitened our roofs.

Fetch me a drink now – the wound

is almost healed.  All night I have

 

regrouped a childhood, while in

the woods: small-hour alchemy,

frost transmuted soil into stone.

Will this prove your last visit?

 

Already, a lacklustre spring hustles

at winter’s door; dawn leaks the

day’s smudge – a grubby thaw.

Life, falling short of promise?

 

 

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Music for Doppelgangers

 

Yes, yes – my eyes have seen him.

In the light of attic windows,

polish of a kitchen spoon.

 

In a mirror’s mouth, I stand, for madness.

Larch woods lead to empty shores,

a shuttered house; a door, half open on

destiny, a man who waits in my hall.

 

Each dawn he slips from a branch.

I walk in him – this bone desert, cold

and blanched, like the Gobi.  His skin,

dreams of reinvention. Corpulence;

of bold flesh returning bright and bloated,

fat rolling over the teeth.

 

And, of course, there are those nights

when I taste him – clawing up from a well

of sleep. Even strides beat a path from

the Flow Country; on Loyal’s slope he swills

the peat from his breath, gathers his face in

black streams, turns, heads up rage for my

lowland streets.

 

What became of me?

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Glyn Ceiriog Winter

 

Sunless, moonless for weeks, beneath

bald pates the hills brood and brood,

no view to speak of.  Silence, save

 

for the lambs’ runt speech: a coarse,

one-note language. Plant life below

the bridge: the brook’s green braid

 

conjures a maiden. Day taking leave.

Something must break – if not spring,

then snow’s frail blessing.

 

© Bruce Ackerley

 

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New Welsh Voices:

Our series of new Welsh voices is launched with three fantastic debut collections - & the concept of zero from Cardiff performance poet, christopher brooke; spilling histories from the John Tripp prize-winner clare e. potter and Pieces, from John Tanner – a book that ranges from South Wales to America and back to North Wales, taking in the world as it travels.

Zoë Skoulding says of John Tanner’s work, “John Tanner has a sharp eye and a very dry sense of humour. A mixture of curiosity, detachment and formal inventiveness drives 'Pieces' forward into the transient surfaces of an American road movie, while a grainier take on north Wales unspools in the rear view mirror. This is a restless, intelligent collection, full of insights into how movement transforms place and identity.”

 

John Tanner is a former media executive, now freelance writer.  He recently graduated from Bangor University, where he is now beginning a full time PhD in English Literature. He has had poems published in small press magazines and anthologies. He lives in Deganwy.

 

   Pieces –  John Tanner

 

From the prose-poetry sequence – The Eastern Valley:

iv. Jesus and a lesson in love

 

THERE was a word, “love”, that seemed to be the most

important word in the world. But very strange. It wasn’t like “house” or “milk” or “coal”. It wasn’t even like “bad” or “good”. I’d learned that it should be used to describe how I felt about my parents. Later I learned that it was also the word for what I felt about Jesus. That puzzled me. If anyone had hammered nails into my parents, I would have cried and screamed. But that had already happened to Jesus and, really, it didn’t bother me much at all. So I needed to test the word “love” some more. I used it to say how I felt about a girl, Valerie, who lived three doors away; likewise, how I felt about my cat, Sandy. I asked myself: “How much would you care if somebody hammered nails into those?” I answered that I would care a lot. So now I had some sort of meaning for “love”. Jesus had played his part in that.

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Weightless

 

Under the sedation

of the afternoon freeways

sleepwalker

Sunset nights this city

that dreamed itself

into being that rose

in a pale pastel blur

from crusted rivers

and dust scrub....

 

Be cool. No hasty moves.

The palms are posing and

they do they not wish to be disturbed.

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Slow-mo. Slow-mo.

 

Listen to the rustle of the foliage

beyond the pool

your host is approaching

floating through

exotic blooms

embalming hand

offering itself the lips peeled

to a succulent smile the eyes

calmly closed.

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Sun Shaft on Tal-y-fan

 

Spotlight sneaking

through cloud, touching up

some rough-trade

pasture, featuring

character actor

dry-stone walls, giving

cameo roles

to pot-bellied mountain ponies,

ragged-arse mountain sheep.

 

Once a sign

of God – along

with lightning’s animated

Nike flash, the rainbow’s

cheque-in-the-post

promise. Now it’s nothing

more than itself, wavering,

growing pale, wondering

what it was ever meant

to illuminate.

 

© John Tanner

 

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  Coffee House Poetry

 

For the last three years Cinnamon Press has run the poetry journal, Coffee House Poetry. The magazine has grown in size and steadily increased production values. In 2007 there will be more exiting changes as Cinnamon takes over another leading poetry journal. Look out for details on the website.

 

Selected poems from past issues of Coffee House Poetry:

 

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March

 

 comes creaking in

 season of clouds

 brain too damp to fire

 

how much depth to the rain?

the town climbs through it

like a sea in stages

 

the sky in its speech

is shy

but unending

 

how much height?

there are no eyes up

no cupped hands to catch

 

between skies

out of doors

heaven lets down its rope

 

dark of office

    I hear this adjusting

like an old building

lost in thought

   of how to preserve

its nonchalance

   knowing the ivy

holds up the world

 

which sticks to me

too much this day

 

Kit Kelen, Macao, China, from issue 10

 

 

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Rainy First Days

 

Believe me, this time of year

Nine-times-in-ten

Almost always

It is sunny here: full of swallows

I had said

On the third day of frogs

On the doorstep.

 

And before she, just forgetting

Her new vows

For a moment,

Murdered me, in the kitchen

We splashed out

Over green walls, with sheep

In the corners.

 

Now later, with our wool-socks

Laid out cold

In the wood-smoke

I pray by the window

Scour forecasts

For high pressure

 

Long days, by the river.

 

© Mike Smith, Brussels, from issue 9

 

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An everyday story of mortgages

 

I come across the fields,

with map, compass and torch,

warm in my balaclava and gloves.

 

 

I climb the last stile

and cross the lane

then onto the track

 

to the potter's house.

The lights are out,

there's no moon.

 

She lives alone.

It's extremely easy

and you've paid me well.

 

I work the lock,

a slight click then silence.

I'm in.

 

Her bedroom's round the back,

near her studio.

I hear her light snore.

 

I don't actually enjoy this bit,

though I suppose people think I do

but it's lucrative.

 

The pillow is down.

She's old.

I barely sweat.

 

She looks peaceful.

A few months later,

you buy the house.

 

Of course, the price came down.

Others put off

by the circumstances.

 

You move in, as planned.

Your pottery thrives.

It's a beautiful house.

 

I come across the fields.

 

© Katrina Naomi, London, from issue 8

 

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Vigil, Drumnadrochit

 

It was almost time. Night wavered over the green

like chimney smoke as the village's inhabitants

drifted from snickets and gates in the preceding

minutes; not in droves, like sheep, but in ones,

alone as prophets, leaving the established paths,

congregating by a bench more fit for picnics

 

where a woman in woollens handed out candles

with a muffled smile to the Free Church pastor;

the postmaster; students home for their breaks;

two plumpish young mums who jiggled their prams

and fussed; a Japanese tourist, newly off the bus

from Inverness who ambled over, curious.

 

The vigil commenced with a struck match. A cruel

thorny frost crowned its head. Fingers flared red,

passing the flame between cold, cupped hands.

I was in the East during Vietnam; I saw the soldiers'

faces. It's not about Saddam. What do people

in Japan think about the possibility of war?

 

When the cold got to us, we marched to the obelisk

in the shadow of the looming distillery; counted

on the list nine McDonald men among the lives

laid down, iced-over; stamped our feet, chanting

our opposition, the glen echoing our attempt

to circulate blood like the sound of distant artillery.

 

© Sue Vickerman, Montrose, from issue 7

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You Might Want to Picture This

 

OK, you’re down by the sea

where it starts to thin

and fray around the edges;

past the ghost train, the rides,

that will only take you at a certain size,

losing your footing on the shingle,

and a stone in the turn-up of your trousers, and

the tide, for all you know,

could be in any direction at all.

 

© Carolyn Outlon, Kent, from issue 6

 

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3. SUBMISSIONS TO CINNAMON PRESS

 

Cinnamon Press has an open submissions policy with full guidelines on the website. Cinnamon also runs two competitions each year to find new writers in four genres, including poets ready to publish a first collection – cash prize plus a publishing contract. In 2007 we hope to launch a poetry book club in conjunction with the poetry magazine subscription – a great way to buy brilliant new poetry collections at highly discounted prices. You can find out more at www.cinnamonpress.com or email: jan@cinnamonpress.com or post enquiries to Jan Fortune-Wood, Meirion House, Glan yr afon, Tanygrisiau, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, LL41 3SU.

 

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4.  Afterword

email Poetry Kit - info@poetrykit.org   - if you would like to tell us what you think.

Thank you for taking the time to read Caught in the Net.  Our other magazine is Poetry Kit Magazine, this is a webzine which appears on the Poetry Kit site which can be found at – http://www.poetrykit.org/     We are seeking submissions of poetry, reviews, essays, articles and illustrations for that magazine.  When submitting please ensure that the magazine title to which you are submitting is clearly marked in the subject line of any emails. As this is the first in a new series and we are hoping to attract a wider readership this posting is going out to everyone on Poetry Kit mailing lists even if you have not subscribed to CITN.  All other editions will go to CITN subscribers only.

There are over 2500 subscribers to CITN which is primarily an email magazine although each edition is archived on line at .  To to keep this number growing please pass it on to your friends.
 

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