Jacqueline Saphra's The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions shortlisted for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize
Jacqueline Saphra's delicious début collection The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions has been shortlisted for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2011, one of the coolest, best-established and most in-touch poetry prizes in the UK.
The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions is one of five collections, out of the 74 titles that were submitted, to have reached the shortlist for the prize. The Poetry Trust has called the five shortlisted poets as 'ones-to-watch' amongst the next generation of UK poets.The other poets to make the shortlist are: Tom Duddy, Nancy Gaffield, Ed Reiss and Rachel Boast.
The winner will be announced at the start of the 23rd Aldeburgh Poetry Festival on Friday 4 November 2011. As huge fans of last year's winner, Christian Campbell, we're chuffed J's in the same company!
[We have a couple of offers on
The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions: it's half-price until the end of September on our site
www.flippedeye.net/store and if you buy Emma Hammond's
tunth-sk from our Amazon seller (flippedeye) you'll get a copy for FREE in addition)
flipped eye publishing completes residency on Incwriters.co.uk
flipped eye publishing's editors and authors have just completed a month-long blogging residency on the
incwriters.co.uk site. Some of the topics that came up in the shared musings include, the craft of writing, the place of short stories in the world as well as trends and best practice in editing and publishing work. To read the blogs, visit the
incwriters.co.uk site using
this link.
Q&A with Inua Ellams in Guardian
Inua Ellams: performance poetry for all
Young writer Inua Ellams is bringing performance poetry to London's National Theatre with his show The 14th Tale, which tells of growing up in Nigeria and London
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Inua Ellams, performance poet.
How did you come to write the play?There's this parallel between writing and martial-arts films: typically the young upstart challenges the old master and does several backflips then the master just stands there, makes one move and the kid's on the floor. You have to do something similar with writing: control your tongue and just show off a couple of times. When I was 19 I tried to show off as much as possible – all the backflips – then this astonishing poet, Kwame Dawes, ripped to shreds one such poem and I didn't write for about six months. Then my father had a stroke and I began to think about the lineage of troublesome men in my family and my role as the only boy. It's really a coming-of-age story.
Does it feel like a real departure from your previous poems?Before this, I'd written global poems and that was easy: you throw a pen and it bounces against something that's wrong with the world. It's more difficult to write about yourself and at the same time make it so that Joe Bloggs will be able to find something of himself in it.
What made you write for the stage?I've been known to write densely beautiful things with extended metaphors that require you to pay attention, but I so often go to poetry readings where half the audience are drunk or more interested in sleeping with the person beside them and there's chitter chatter – I just got fed up of that and wanted to write something where people come expecting to be quiet for an hour.
Is there a growing enthusiasm for poetry in performance?Yes, although part of me hopes the art form will never be that widespread, because as soon as something hits the mainstream it gets watered down.
But aren't you worried about hitting the mainstream by having a show on at the National?[Laughs] That's a good question, but I'm not worried because I'm far too much of a troublemaker and far too stubborn to make other people happy. I'm terrible at lying, I can never hide my emotions, it's ridiculous. My duty is to the beautiful: as long as I create that then I'll be true.
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See original article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/jan/31/inua-ellams-performance-poet-national-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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