Latest Press Releases
FINAL BOOK FROM ADRIAN MITCHELL
The final collection of new poems by Adrian Mitchell will be published on 28 May by Bloodaxe Books. Adrian had just completed work on Tell Me Lies: Poems 2005-2008 in the weeks before his unexpected death last December.
Tell Me Lies is quintessential Adrian Mitchell, with visions of war and peace, celebrations, elegies and daft adventures. The title-poem is a 21st-century remix of his celebrated anti-war poem, ‘To Whom It May Concern (Tell me lies about Vietnam)’, first performed at the anti-Vietnam War protest in Trafalgar Square in 1964 (footage of Adrian reading both versions of this poem is on the Bloodaxe website). Much and nothing has changed since then, and Mitchell’s new (now sadly final) poems are just as powerfully relevant 40 years on.
Memorial events for Adrian Mitchell are taking place throughout 2009, the next in Swansea on 22 May, and culminating in an event at London’s Royal Festival Hall on 9 December with Brian Patten, Roger McGough, Carol Ann Duffy, John Hegley and others.
Adrian Mitchell (1932-2008) was a prolific poet, playwright and children’s writer. His poetry’s simplicity, clarity, passion and humour showed his allegiance to a vital, popular tradition embracing William Blake as well as the Border Ballads and the blues. His most nakedly political poems – about nuclear war, Vietnam, prisons and racism – became part of the folklore of the Left, sung and recited at demonstrations and mass rallies.
Born in London in 1932, Adrian worked as a journalist from 1955 to 1966, when he became a full-time writer. He gave many hundreds of readings throughout the world. Many of his plays and stage adaptations were performed at the National Theatre as well as by the Royal Shakespeare Company and other theatre companies. In 2002, the socialist magazine Red Pepper dubbed him Shadow Poet Laureate and asked him to write regular republican poems for their columns. In a National Poetry Day poll in 2005, his poem ‘Human Beings’ was voted the poem that most people would like to see launched into space. After Allison & Busby stopped publishing poetry, he brought his work to Bloodaxe. Adrian Mitchell’s Greatest Hits: His 40 Golden Greats (1991) was followed by four books covering 50 years of his work: Heart on the Left: Poems 1953-1984 (1997, which included the work from Greatest Hits), Blue Coffee: Poems 1985-1996 (1996), All Shook Up: Poems 1997-2000 (2000) and The Shadow Knows: Poems 2000-2004 (2004). Tell Me Lies: Poems 2005-2008 (2009) is his final collection of poetry for adults. Also scheduled for publication in 2009 are his collected poems for children, Umpteen Pockets (Orchard Books), and Shapeshifters, his versions of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, illustrated by Alan Lee (Frances Lincoln). Both books are due to be published in October.
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Tell Me Lies: Poems 2005-2008, by Adrian Mitchell, with artwork by Ralph Steadman, is published by Bloodaxe Books on Thursday 28 May, price £10.95 (paper).
For further information, author/cover jpegs or an e-mailed version of this release, please call Christine/Rebecca on 01434 240500 or e-mail publicity@bloodaxebooks.com.
For more details on the book, plus footage of Adrian Mitchell reading, go to:
http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/titlepage.asp?isbn=1852248432
Memorial events and readings will be as follows:
St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, London (Memorial concert of Mike Westbrook’s Glad Day with settings of Blake by Adrian Mitchell) on 14 May; Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea on 22 May;
Crouch End Library, London, with Adrian’s partner of 47 years Celia (Mitchell) Hewitt on 9 October;
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, with Brian Patten, Roger McGough, Carol Ann Duffy, John Hegley and others on 9 December.
Full details are posted on Bloodaxe’s website: http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/articles.asp?id=33
[NOTES TO EDITORS]
Links to some of the many obituaries of Adrian Mitchell can be found below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/dec/21/adrian-mitchell-obituary
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article5385323.ece
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/adrian-mitchell-poet-and-playwright-whose-work-was-driven-by-his-pacifist-politics-1208517.html
Michael Rosen has his own moving tribute in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/22/poetry
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Shadow-on-the-sun?var_recherche=John%20Berger%20on%20Adrian%20Mitchell
bloodaxe books is supported by arts council england
[29 April 2009]
SZIRTES AT 60
T. S. Eliot Prize-winning poet George Szirtes, who came to Britain as a refugee in 1956 following the Hungarian Uprising, is celebrating his 60th birthday with the publication of a major retrospective. George Szirtes’ New & Collected Poems will be published by Bloodaxe Books on 29 November, together with the first full-length critical study on his work, Reading George Szirtes, by John Sears.
George Szirtes is one of the very few foreign poets, and the first Hungarian, to have written entirely in English and be publishing a Collected Poems. Twentieth-century European history and politics infuse his work, which is haunted by his family’s experience of war, occupation and the Holocaust, as well as by exile. George Szirtes will be giving a number of readings during November and December, including at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, Newcastle, London, Cambridge and Norwich.
George Szirtes was born in Budapest in 1948. He came to England with his family as a refugee at the age of 8 after the Soviet invasion of Hungary and has lived here ever since. He was brought up in London and studied Fine Art in London and Leeds. His first poetry book, The Slant Door, was published in 1979 and won the Faber Memorial prize. After three more collections with Secker and five with OUP, he moved to Bloodaxe, publishing his Hungarian selection The Budapest File in 2000, An English Apocalypse in 2001 and Reel, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, in 2004. He returned to Hungary for the first time in 1984, which led to the start of a second career as a literary translator. He lives in Norfolk and teaches poetry and creative writing at the University of East Anglia. He is available for interview both in Norwich and London. He will be in London on Friday 14 November and Wednesday 3 December, but other dates could be arranged.
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New & Collected Poems, by George Szirtes, is published by Bloodaxe Books
on Saturday 29 November (his 60th birthday), price £15.00 (paper).
Reading George Szirtes, by John Sears, is published by Bloodaxe on the same day, price £12.00 (paper).
For interview requests, author/cover jpegs or an e-mailed version of this release, please call Christine/Rebecca on 01434 240500 or e-mail publicity@bloodaxebooks.com.
George Szirtes will be reading at the following venues:
Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, Friday 9 November, 8 pm
Newcastle, Live Poetry, Live Theatre, Sunday 9 November, 7.30 pm
The Savile Club, London, Friday 14 November, 7.00 pm
Warwick Arts Centre, Wednesday 19 November, 7.15 pm
Cambridge, St John's, Thursday 27 November, 7 pm
University of Kent, Darwin Lecture Theatre, Tuesday 2 December, 7 pm
Hungarian Cultural Centre, London, Wednesday 3 December, 7 pm
The King of Hearts, Norwich, Friday 5 December, 7 pm
The Lonsdale Room at the BRLSI, Queen’s Square, Bath, Thursday 11 December, 8 pm
A film of George Szirtes reading his work is included in the DVD-book In Person: 30 Poets, filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce (Bloodaxe Books, 2008). A clip of this is available on the videos page of the Bloodaxe website (scroll down to S):
http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/articles.asp?id=36
A full biography and recordings of George Szirtes reading five poems can be
found on the Poetry Archive:
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=224
http://www.georgeszirtes.co.uk/
[23 October 2008]
Bloodaxe Books is supported by Arts Council England
POETRY FROM THE FRONT LINE
US SOLDIER-POET BRIAN TURNER TOURS BRITAIN & IRELAND
Iraq war veteran and US soldier-poet Brian Turner will be embarking on his first reading tour of Britain and Ireland in March and April, coinciding with the 5th anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq on 20 March, when he will be reading at London’s South Bank.
Brian Turner is the only serving soldier from the current conflict in Iraq to have published a book of poetry about it. His harrowing and moving account of life on the front line in Iraq, Here, Bullet, was published in the UK by Bloodaxe Books last November. The book offers unflinchingly accurate description but no moral judgement, looking at the situation from both Iraqi and American points of view.
Brian Turner served for seven years in the US Army. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq from November 2003 with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. In 1999-2000 he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division. Born in 1967, he received an MFA from the University of Oregon and lived abroad in South Korea for a year before joining the army. His poetry was included in a feature-length documentary film, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which was recently nominated for an Academy Award. Here, Bullet (Bloodaxe, 2007) was first published in the US in 2005, where it has earned Turner nine major literary awards, including a 2006 Lannan Literary Fellowship and a 2007 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry.
Brian Turner is available for interview at the following times during his tour of Britain:
Tuesday 18 March in Glasgow (most of the day), Thursday 20 March in London (afternoon) and Friday 28 March in Liverpool or London. When in Ireland he will be available for interview on Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 April in Dublin.
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Here, Bullet, by Brian Turner, is published by Bloodaxe Books, price £8.95 (paper).
For further information, review copies or author/cover jpegs, please call Christine/Rebecca on 01434 240500 or e-mail publicity@bloodaxebooks.com.
The 5th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War will be on 20 March 2008, and Brian Turner will be giving a series of readings in Britain and Ireland in March and April.
He launches his tour (his first of Britain & Ireland) with events at StAnza, Scotland's poetry festival in St Andrew's (13 & 14 March), and finishes in Dun Laoghaire at the Poetry Now 08 Festival (3-6 April). Readings will also be in Ullapool (15 March), Glasgow (18 March), Newcastle (19 March), London’s South Bank Centre (20 March), Cambridge (25 March)
and Liverpool (27 March).
Brian Turner will be returning to Ireland later in April to be
Writer-in-Residence for Cuirt Festival in Galway (22-27 April).
for details of press, TV & Radio coverage.
[3 March 2008]
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A GOLDEN FALL FOR ANNE STEVENSON
TRIPLE US HONOURS FOR BRITISH-BASED AMERICAN POET |
The American poet Anne Stevenson, who has lived in Britain for over 40 years and whose 14th poetry collection Stone Milk was recently published in the UK by Bloodaxe Books, has received the third in a trio of honours from her native country this autumn.
It has just been announced that she has been awarded the $200,000 Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award for Poetry by the Lannan Foundation of Santa Fe, in recognition of her significant contribution to English-language literature.
This follows the announcement of two other major US awards this autumn for Anne Stevenson: in October she was given a Neglected Masters Award of $50,000 from the Poetry Foundation of Chicago, and on 27 November she will be awarded The Aiken Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry, a prize carrying a cash award of $10,000, by The Sewanee Review in Tennessee. For Anne Stevenson, aged 74, this late US recognition brings with it a total prize fund of $260,000, plus the first edition of her work to appear in the United States in over two decades. On April 1, 2008, The Library of America will publish Anne Stevenson: Selected Poems, edited by Andrew Motion, in conjunction with the Neglected Masters Award. This series is exclusively devoted to the greatest figures in American literature.
Anne Stevenson’s work has already been recognised in the UK: she was the inaugural winner of the Northern Rock Foundation Writer’s Award in 2002 and in 2005 she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) by Durham University for her achievements in poetry over the last 50 years. She also has Honorary Degrees from Loughborough and Hull Universities. Of this belated and unexpected flurry of attention from America, Anne Stevenson writes:
“Recognition is pleasant, but of course no poet writes poems only for recognition. I’m glad that ‘fame’ has eluded me for most of my life. Literary success when I was younger might have gone to my head; now at seventy-four, I can see how little it matters. How much my poems matter, of course, is for time to tell.”
Of her latest collection of poems, Stone Milk, Anne Stevenson comments:
"I think of Stone Milk as my final book, my swan song. But then, I talk as often about giving up writing poetry as I do about giving up whisky, and I never quite succeed in doing either."
Anne Stevenson was born in Cambridge, England in 1933, of American parents and grew up in New England and in Ann Arbor, Michigan, graduating with a Major Hopwood Award for poetry from the University of Michigan in 1954. After several transatlantic switches, she settled in Britain in 1964, and has since lived in Cambridge, Scotland, Oxford, the Welsh Borders and latterly in North Wales and Durham. She has held many literary fellowships, and was the inaugural winner of the Northern Rock Foundation Writer’s Award, in 2002. As well as her numerous collections of poetry, Anne Stevenson has published Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath (Viking, 1989), a book of essays, Between the Iceberg and the Ship (1998) and two critical studies of Elizabeth Bishop’swork, most recently Five Looks at Elizabeth Bishop (Bloodaxe Books, 2006). Her latest poetry books are Poems 1955–2005 (Bloodaxe Books, 2005) and Stone Milk (2007). Anne Stevenson has three children and lives with her husband, Peter Lucas, in Durham and in North Wales. She is available for interview (in person or via e-mail only).
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For further information about the three awards, please refer to the following websites:
http://www.lannan.org/
http://www.poetryfoundation.org
http://www.sewanee.edu/sewanee_review/aiken_taylor
Stone Milk, by Anne Stevenson is published by Bloodaxe Books, price £7.95 (paper). For further information, review copies, author/cover jpegs or an e-mailed version of this release, please call Christine/Rebecca on 01434 240500 or e-mail publicity@bloodaxebooks.com.
[12 November 2007]
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