There is a Madness in our Method
THE WINNERS ARE:
As seems to be my want, I couldn’t choose a single winner for this wee collection challenge, and so I am pleased and proud and muchly chuffed to congratulate:
KATE YOUNG
for
“Beyond the School Gate”
&
NIGEL KENT
for
“Benchwarmers”
Both collections will be published in 2023,.
Congratulations to both and thank you to everybody who took the time to put a wee collection together
KAREN MOONEY
‘Missing Pieces”
Thursday, 23rd June 2022
6.45pm – 8.00pm
Moira Library, NI
Well I’m proud to say that tomorrow sees a quite special launch event for Karen Mooney’s debut collection, ‘Missing Pieces’.
Full details are here:
If however, like me you aren’t able to get to Moira Library, I should point out that you can – and indeed should – buy a copy of the collection direct from Karen, who as is her way, will be making sure that the pennies from the sale will be donated to Marie Curie.
Order Signed Copies Direct From Karen Mooney via Twitter or Facebook
Karen is a special lady and a superb poet and I can’t think of anybody who wouldn’t find something to love, in Missing Pieces
‘Missing Pieces’ is a collection of poems tracing the story of love, loss and relationships, exploring moments, memories and reflections from early childhood to the present day.
Karen Mooney has come to poetry with great honesty and insightfulness. Her kaleidoscope of poems and haibun visit places often emotionally painful and challenging, but always with a delicacy of touch that assures a long-lasting and deep connection with the reader. From aching sadness (Prepared) ‘grave papers for a child not spoken of’, to the hopefulness of renewed life (Aubretia) ‘You spill out of pots and beds, seed waves of blue’, we are taken through a journey of memory where the language sings and the melody resonates long afterwards. These are poems to be re-read and treasured and I look forward to the ‘many pieces’ of a full collection.
Lynda Tavakoli, author of The Boiling Point for Jam (Arlen House)
Order Signed Copies Direct From Karen Mooney via Twitter or Facebook
About Karen Mooney
Karen started writing poetry in 2016 following her father’s death, and her work has been published in the USA, UK, and Ireland. Her work first appeared with Hedgehog Poetry Press in The Road to Clevedon Pier, and she co-authored Penned In with Gaynor Kane in 2020.
Follow Karen on Twitter @1karenmooney or Facebook @observationsbykaren
Product details
I do so love our wee pamphlets when we do them, and so I didn’t want to wait another year for a Cult Member to join Gaynor Kane, Des Childs, Valerie Bence, Manning Goodwin and Caroline Gill in seeing their collection tripping the light.
I just like glitterballs, what can I say?
Anyway, June’s Cult Challenge then is a simple one – let’s find another wee collection to enjoy in early 2023.
So, as before I challenge thee to put together a wee pamphlet of 4-16 pages of poetry. This time there is no pre-defined theme, so whatever works for you.
We don’t mind what the angle you come from is, but think of it as a set of poems.
THE WINNERS ARE:
As seems to be my want, I couldn’t choose a single winner for this wee collection challenge, and so I am pleased and proud and muchly chuffed to congratulate:
KATE YOUNG
for
“Beyond the School Gate”
and
NIGEL KENT
for
“Benchwarmers”
Congratulations to both and thank you to everybody who took the time to put a wee collection together
The Challenge:
The Prize:
Have fun!
Ah, I do so love an Official Launch Day, and when we are talking about a poetry collection like this one….well, what can I say, doubly special.
So very many congratulations to Louise on her brilliant wee book. Do check it out, you can thank me later.
Order Signed Copies Direct From Louise G Cole HERE
Under the Influence takes the reader into the sometimes comical and frequently heart-breaking relationship between the author and her elderly, care-homed mother. The sequence of free-verse poems comments on the lasting influence of a flame-haired, cabbage-water drinking seamstress on the child who was told she had a face only a mother could love. Included is ‘Fur Coat and No Knickers’ an award-winning poem which has struck a cord with many about the occasionally humorous frustrations shared by frail elderly parents and their necessarily resilient adult children.
Under the Influence received a commendation in the 2021 Fool for Poetry Competition run by Munster Literature Centre, Ireland.
Order Signed Copies Direct From Louise G Cole HERE
About Louise G Cole
Originally from Worcestershire, Louise G Cole now lives in Ireland. She writes poetry, short stories and flash fiction and has won or been placed in local, national and international writing competitions. She won a Hennessy Award in 2018 when a Dublin pub was (briefly) re-named in her honour. She was chosen by Carol Ann Duffy for publication of the Laureate’s Choice poetry pamphlet ‘Soft Touch’ in 2019. During the pandemic, Louise has been posting weekly creative writing prompts on her website, where she also explains the importance of the ‘G’ in her name (it avoids confusion with an underwear model):
www.louisegcolewriter.com.
Product details
Officially Launched Today, I am proud and pleased and many kinds of chuffed to be able to introduce you to a wonderfilled collection from a frankly awesome poet.
Don’t delay, treat yourself to some excellent poetry today.
Order Signed Copies Direct From Philippa Hatton-Lepine HERE
Seasons change and life goes on while we grieve – “trees that will soon bear fruit, cast pink shadows” “dandelions feed many wishes” “crab apples fall all night, all day”.
thoughts while walking with merlyn is Philippa Hatton-Lepine’s debut collection, created from daydreams during a time of bereavement. Poems about loss are interspersed with day to day observations and memories as a year goes by.
Order Signed Copies Direct From Philippa Hatton-Lepine HERE
About Philippa Hatton-Lepine
Philippa completed a degree in English Literature in 1987, rediscovering a love for writing poetry after 30 years of work, motherhood and life in general.
She hopes to improve her poems through online courses, textbooks, and reading the works of others. She lives a quiet life in a Leicestershire village, has too many cats, and would like, one day, to publish a collection with no mention of funerals, except for the title, which would probably be
No More Funerals.
Product details
Order Signed Copies Direct From Philippa Hatton-Lepine HERE
Now this is a book. We’ve waited a lot longer than we should to finally get Carol McKay’s wonderfilled pamphlet ‘Reading The Landscape’ in print, for oh so many reasons, but this is genuinely something particularly important and special and a wee book that you need in your collection.
Carol is a special writer and poet and I think I can safely say that you will love this.
Order Signed Copies Direct From Carol McKay HERE
Brought together for the first time, these are poems about ancestry and addiction, about landscape and introspection, about walking in the natural world and reflecting on our own inner mindscapes. Sometimes meditative, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, they range from industrial Scotland to rural Cumbria and across the North Atlantic, taking the reader through geological and human concepts of time right up to the present moment.
Order Signed Copies Direct From Carol McKay HERE
‘I loved how accessible, they are, and how true. So much goes on beneath their shimmering surfaces. From a shell-littered west coast beach to overheard stories on a Kincardine bus, Carol McKay’s poetry is vividly and poignantly in touch with the things that matter – family, community, a sense of place and of history. These big-hearted, keen-eyed poems understand just how precarious life can be, and how thrilling.’
‘Craft without ever seeming in any way laboured, tight but not overwrought. I love Carol’s use of the short line; the images she finds right outside her door and on long walks.’
About Carol McKay
Carol McKay’s poetry and short fiction have been published widely over the last twenty years in literary journals such as Gutter, Chapman, Mslexia and Wasafiri.
She won the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2010, a Magnetic North ‘Space/Time’ residency in 2018, and was shortlisted for the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction in 2019.
Carol taught creative writing through The Open University between 2004 and 2018 and her website is www.carolmckay.co.uk
Product details
Order Signed Copies Direct From Carol McKay HERE
Officially launched today, I am proud and chuffed to let you know that Phil Vernon’s mahoosively gorgeous collection, ‘Watching The Moon Landing’ is officially launched TODAY.
If you haven’t got a Signed First Edition, there are very few left, so…
Order Signed Copies Direct From Phil Vernon HERE
The poems in this collection speak in many voices and touch on many themes: COVID-19, love and loss, uncertainty, well-being, migration, power, violence, nature, superstition, memory, art and faith. They explore connections, separation, nearness and distance in time and space. They feel, with careful fingertips, for the fragile frameworks and interpretations we construct to make sense of and protect our equally fragile landscapes and lives. Often written in formal poetic forms – fragile frameworks themselves, perhaps – the poems remind us that we are each subject to the specific but fluid and interconnected circumstances of our time and place.
Order Signed Copies Direct From Phil Vernon HERE
“Phil Vernon once again invites us to bear witness in a collection with characteristic poise and gravitas. The narrative voices through these crafted poems have clarity and intent, counterbalanced with enough nuance to allow the reader to read between the lines. There’s no subject that Vernon cannot tackle: from the immediacy of watching the moon landing to a Covid poem through the partial lens of Camus. His poetry explores fear: from the looming threat of war, the horrors of female genital mutilation, to climate change, toxic masculinity and modern poverty to more personal poems. Form, metre and rhyme do not constrain Vernon’s poetry; rather, they allow the poems to appear seamless, marrying a traditional approach to poetry with one that is fresh and distinctive reflecting contemporary concerns. An illuminating collection for our times.”
– Matthew M. C. Smith, writer. Editor of Black Bough Poetry.
“With unflinching honesty and compassion, Phil Vernon invites us to contemplate the significance of absences: neglected spaces in urban landscapes; hidden forces and lost relationships; history’s unwritten messages; the musicality of silence. These are poems that sing in perfectly tuned cadences and continue, long afterwards, to resonate in the memory.”
– Marian Christie, author of Fractal Poems and From Fibs to Fractals
“In Watching the Moon Landing, Phil Vernon peels back the layers of the ordinary, of the everyday, of what we take for granted, to expose what lies beneath: those things we choose to ignore, perhaps because they are too painful to acknowledge, or perhaps because over time we have become too desensitised to notice them. Vernon’s beautifully crafted, resonant poems are informed by a sensitivity and deep sense of humanity that challenge the reader to reach out and accept our individual responsibility for others, to act in a way that makes a difference, so that whilst ‘nothing has changed… all has changed’.”
– Nigel Kent, author of Unmuted, Saudade and Psychopathogen
About Phil Vernon
Phil Vernon lives in Kent, with his wife Tebo. He works internationally on humanitarian, development and peacebuilding initiatives. His first full collection Poetry After Auschwitz was published by Sentinel in 2020. The Hedgehog Poetry Press published his Stickleback micro-pamphlet This Quieter Shore in 2018. His updated version of the mediaeval hymn Stabat Mater was set to music by Nicola Burnett Smith and performed in St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden in 2019.
Product details
Well what can I say but a hearty Congratulations to our wonderful poet, Raine Geoghegan on the official release of her latest collection with Hedgehog, ‘The Stone Sleep.’
I’m pleased to say that there are a few signed copies of the first edition left, with these only being available direct from Raine.
Order Signed Copies Direct From Raine Geoghegan HERE
“This extraordinary and exquisitely-crafted pamphlet, the third from Romani poet Raine Geoghegan, has a unique silver thread running through it, of winter, sleep, stone… A tree is ‘more stone than bark’, a woman is stone, and tries to escape feeling; fatigue makes stone of another person. Of course the ultimate sleep is death, and there are poems which feature a woman finding her final ‘atchin tan’, or stopping place, on the road; a vigil is kept with a loved one nearing the end of their journey; a young woman is prepared for burial according to Romani customs; and a gravestone is searched for, lost in long grass. Rituals of birth, death and sex are celebrated. And behind the ‘stone sleep’ of the title is a huge and indomitable life spirit. As the epigraph to the opening (and title) poem, taken from Czesław Miłosz, says: “Even asleep we partake in the becoming of the world”. This life spirit, wild and resilient, is embodied in nature, animals (the wolf, the hawk), native cultures, and elemental presences. Kali Ma, the Hindu goddess of death, rebirth and transformation, presides over the work, representing feminine power, subversive and rebellious: ‘she laughs and sticks her long red tongue out’. The Inuit goddess of the Sea, Sedna, also features, and a female shaman, ‘like a kestrel’. The Salmon, symbol of rebirth, is hunted for cruel human sport, while another poem celebrates the Buddhist reverence for the smallest living creature. Like the ‘masks’ and ‘eyes’ and ‘hands’ which appear, this very tightly-themed pamphlet is greater than the sum of its parts. The Stone Sleep is nourishment and guide: it will be a delight for Raine Geoghegan’s regular readers and is sure to attract many more to her compelling and healing work.”
-GB Clarkson, Author of ‘Overcoat of Flesh’ with Nine Arches Press 2021. Winner of the 2015 Ambit Poetry Competition and the 2015 Poetry London Competition.
“Sometimes shamanic, always moving, these are stirring slivers of living and loss. From ‘As the light unwraps itself,/ you go deeper into the stone sleep’ to reaching atchin tan (stopping place/ home), this pamphlet evokes and awakens a new sense of being and belonging.”
-Sarah James, Poet, fiction writer, journalist and Editor at V. Press. Author of four poetry collections, three pamphlets, and an ACE funded multi-media narrative.
Order Signed Copies Direct From Raine Geoghegan HERE
About Raine Geoghegan
Raine Geoghegan, M.A. is a Welsh born poet, prose writer and playwright of Romany descent. She is a Forward Prize, twice Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net nominee. Her work has been published online and in print with Poetry Ireland Review; Travellers’ Times; Ofi Press; Under the Radar; Fly on the Wall and many more. Her essay featured in Gifts of Gravity and Light (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021).
She has a Highly Commended Award for poetry from Winchester University’s Reaching Out competition and was long listed for the NHS Poetry competition in 2019. Two pamphlets, ‘Apple Water: Povel Panni’ and ‘they lit fires: lenti hatch o yog’ were also published by Hedgehog Poetry Press. Apple Water was listed in the Poetry Book Society Spring 2019 Selection.
Her play ‘The Tree Woman’ was featured in Earthquake an online festival with the Same Boat Theatre Collective based in San Francisco. She is the Romani Script Consultant for the musical For Tonight, due to go live in 2022. Her first full collection, ‘The Talking Stick: O Pookering Kosh’ is forthcoming with Salmon Poetry Press in March 2022.
Website: rainegeoghegan.co.uk – follow Raine at twitter.com/RaineGeoghegan5
Product details
I am so proud to be able to say that today is the day that Elisabeth Kelly’s stunning debut collection, ‘Carbon’ is officially released here in Hedgehogland.
If you haven’t seen it already, Elisabeth has signed copies available and you really do need to read this exciting new talent, believe you me.
Order Signed Copies direct from Elisabeth Kelly HERE
Carbon is a collection about life in all its smallest details and largest concerns. It spans from positive across negative to the more neutral moments in life. It is a group of poems aimed at making us stop and feel and lastly celebrate the beauty all around.
“An intimate yet sweeping collection from a startling new voice on the scene- from ephemeral landscapes to insightful recollection, these poems will resonate with you long after the last page”
– Susan Ireland Author of Sight Unseen
“Kelly’s poems practically sing “like prayer cushions intricately / woven with patterns of / the past”. They are filled with moments exquisite delicacy and a freshness so needed in the hubbub of everyday life. Memories of grandmothers, sewing with mother, sunny picnics and picked periwinkles tied up with love and laughter – this is a book we all need after 2020!”
– Haley Jenkins Editor Selcouth Station Press
“This exquisitely-crafted poetry collection is an extraordinary combination of delicacy and strength. In it Elisabeth explores the building blocks of our lives (nature, hope, family, love) with a fresh honesty that makes for a moving and utterly beautiful book.”
– Charlotte Oliver, Poet
About Elizabeth Kelly
Elisabeth Kelly started writing poetry during the March 2020 lockdown. She lives on a Scottish hill farm with her young family and works as a Principal Early Years Teacher. She has been published in a number of Hedgehog Press anthologies, two Hybriddreich Anthologies, and has work or will have work published in a number of digital and print publications including Dreich Magazine, Forest Publishing Dodging the Rain, Dawntreader, The Honest Ulsterman, Selcouth Station, Eyeflash Poetry, Fragmented Voice and Green Ink. Her poetry is inspired by family life, mental health, and a sense of place. Her poem Sister was Shortlisted for the International Antony Cronin Poetry Award in 2020.
She believes that poetry should be for everyone and hopes to write beautiful, accessible poems where people can recognise themselves. She loves the changes of seasons and chocolate puddings.
Product details
Ah, what a crazy, mixed-up, party-licious kind of day to launch an exceptional, special, poignant and frankly gorgeous Poetry Conversation between two quite (but never quietly) brilliant poets.
Buy yourself a copy of this wicked wee book direct from the source.
You will thank me later.
You Can Order Signed Copies HERE
Life, if you’re lucky, is long and memories stack up like books on a nightstand. There are the meaningful ones, the love and loss ones, the serious and important ones, but also the wild ones – nights out that started without a plan and ended up an adventure, hours’ long conversations that evolved into debates, theses, setting the world to rights, encounters with strangers that led to unexpected friendships, sad nights that felt like endings. This collection is about those nights out and their memories, penned across pages during a pandemic that kept us all from even thinking about going out.
You Can Order Signed Copies HERE
“Jiving off each other’s wistful reminiscences of glittering nights out, Damien B. Donnelly and Eilín de Paor shimmer, shift and shimmy throughout the sassy and sumptuous ‘In the Jitterfritz of Neon’. This book is alive with vivid and vibrant imagery, richly nuanced lyricism, sharply crafted syntax and playful narratives. Capped off with decadent humour and hard-won worldly wisdom, it is a delight of nocturnal exploits, stylish city scenes, romantic dalliances, high-spirited camaraderie and aches for the freedoms we once shared.”
“Damien B. Donnelly and Eilín de Paor’s dazzling collection of twenty poems shimmers and magnetizes with sensual, nostalgic, celebratory evocations of wild nights in Dublin, Amsterdam and New York. The poems complement each other in a beautiful dance, revelling in sensory experiences, friendship, desire and hope.”
“‘In the Jitterfritz of Neon’ serves up a heady mix of poetic cocktails, taking you on a ghost world odyssey of epic wild nights out. A chatty mix of adventure and self-discovery, it swirls glorious recollections of those precious shared times out that shape us and imbue places with meaning.”
“The live feed between Damien B. Donnelly & Eilín de Paor’s sensual and deeply personal poems, is electrifying. The twinned hearts of these poems invoke duende as they beat their daring, striking rhythms.”
About Damien B Donnelly and Eilín de Paor
Damien B. Donnelly is the author of the poetry pamphlet Eat the Storms and a Stickleback micro collection Considering Canvases with Boys, both published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. His work has appeared in many publications both online and in print. He is the host and producer of Eat the Storms, the poetry podcast and has lived in Paris, London and Amsterdam. He is now back in his native homeland of Ireland.
Eilín de Paor lives in Dublin and works in health and social care. Working towards her first collection, her poems have been published by Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Bangor Literary Journal, The Stony Thursday Book, Vox Galvia, Abridged, Dreich, An Capall Dorcha and The Crank Mag. She can be found on Twitter at: @edepaor
Product details