Pamphlet | awritersfountain

On Saturday 10th October I was lucky enough to celebrate Claire Walker’s success at her Book Launch. I have always admired Claire’s poetry, it touches you deeply and makes you think, it lingers after you have read it and stays with you. Her new pamphlet The Girl Who Grew Into A Crocodile (great title) is available from V Press and if I were you, I would order a copy so you can read the poems over and over again.

http://vpresspoetry.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/launching-girl-who-grew-into-crocodile.html?m=1

“Claire Walker’s debut pamphlet The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile is a riveting meditation on motherhood and transformation that crackles with drama. There are moments of lyrical delicacy and oceanic longings, and Walker’s perceptual acuity pitches the reader into a world where nothing is taken at face value – a girl might be a crocodile, a mermaid could become captor, and seeds are studied for their mnemonic potential. This is a work to be savoured.” Carolyn Jess Cooke

“A confident and impressive debut by Claire Walker. The alluring qualities in this collection are the sense of mystique in many of her poems which at first glance appear elucidating. The stylistic fusion of narrative and illustrative poetry see-saws from the adult experience of life to a fabling account of the innocence and fragility of childhood and adolescence. Claire Walker is a writer who clearly cares about her craft and some of the dreamlike qualities of this collection are reminiscent of Joy Davidman’s work.” Antony Owen

It was a fabulous night of poetry and Claire reading from the collection. I have wanted to get my hands on this pamphlet since I saw the first photographs in the summer. It has been very hard not to buy one before the event.

http://clairewalkerpoetry.com/2015/08/14/picking-up-my-pamphlet/

I was delighted to be asked to read at the launch, it gave me a chance to choose a set of poems that I know Claire has enjoyed hearing before.

The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile, by Claire Walker, is published by V. Press. In addition to readings from the pamphlet, Claire will also be joined by guest poets Kevin Brooke, Kathy Gee, Jenny Hope, Neil Laurenson, John Lawrence, Nina Lewis and Ruth Stacey.

Claire Walker’s poetry has appeared in magazines, websites and anthologies including The Interpreter’s House, Ink Sweat and Tears, Nutshells and Nuggets, And Other Poems, Snakeskin, Crystal Voices and three drops from a cauldron. She was runner up in… the 2014/2015 Worcestershire Poet Laureate Competition. The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile is her first pamphlet.

Kevin Brooke writes poetry and stories. His second book called ‘Jimmy Cricket’, and aimed at young adults, was published by Black Pear Press in 2014. He’s also had a number of short stories published in various anthologies and was amazed to have won the Erewash Writers’ national short story competition in 2014 with ‘Running Away’.

Kathy Gee lives in Worcestershire and mentors museum and heritage organisations. In 2011 she was an unexpected finalist for the Worcestershire Laureate and has since had some fifty poems published in online and print magazines including The Interpreter’s House, Obsessed with Pipework, Ink, Sweat and Tears, ‘And Other Poems’, Antiphon, Acumen, and in three anthologies. She is a member of the Worcestershire stanza and regularly reads at spoken word events. Her first collection will be published in 2016.

Jenny Hope is a writer, poet, workshop facilitator, Woman with a Tree Thing. Her collection, Petrolhead was published in 2010 by Oversteps Books. She is currently working on her second collection. Her websites are www.poetrymaker.co.uk and www.jennyhope.co.uk

Neil Laurenson has read at poetry events across the region, including the Wenlock Poetry Festival and the Ledbury Poetry Festival. Guaranteed lashings of puns and piles of wit.

John Lawrence is a sometimes writer, sometimes performer of his sometimes poetry, who always lives in Redditch. And always wants to write more than he sometimes does.

Nina Lewis has poetry published in a range of anthologies and magazines. Her poetry has appeared in an art installation and on the Wenlock Poetry trail. In 2014 she was commissioned to write and perform at Birmingham Literature Festival. She is currently working on her first collection.

Ruth Stacey’s debut poetry collection Queen, Jewel, Mistress was published by Eyewear, July 2015. Her pamphlet Fox Boy was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2014. Most recently her poems have appeared in the anthology Advice on Proposals by Like This Press, Brittle Star magazine, Abridged issues 0-29 and 0-34, and online at Ink, Sweat and Tears. She lives in Worcestershire.

Cover design Ruth Stacey

Kathy Jenny John Kevin

Nina Neil Ruth

Photographs – credit Richard Hodgetts

REVIEW

http://sabotagereviews.com/2015/10/12/the-girl-who-grew-into-a-crocodile-by-claire-walker/

Sarah Hymas’s latest pamphlet is called In Good Weather the Sign Outside Reads Danger Quicksand and I am lucky enough to be reviewing it. Sarah is no stranger to making interesting, playful pamphlets. Her pamphlet Lune was produced in 2012 and was Runner Up for Best Pamphlet in the Saboteur Awards 2013

Since 2003 Sarah has been published in various magazines, including: New Writing 15, Magma, The Rialto, Poetry Wales, Warwick Review, Washington Square Review, Stand, Tadeeb, Keystone, Iota, Staple, Tears in the Fence, Rain Dog, The Leeds Guide, Orbis, Agenda, The Slab, Smiths Knoll, Shadowtrain, Cadenza, Raconteur.

Sarah is no stranger to approaching multiple time frames and once you understand this is what she is doing, the writing is easier to put together in your mind. The concept is supported by using different folded sections for marking the moving of time. The pamphlet is playful, you can even experiment with how you read it, as I did. Sarah means for it to be a puzzle, that’s part of the design.

The four parts are packed with satisfying, vivid description firm in time and place. The reader is transported into and through inter-linked moments, things change and return to how they were before, only better, I admired the juxtaposition between natural and man-made, assisted landscape, assisted life.

As the book unfolds (literally) you drift through past and present whilst at the same time a nagging idea arrives, perhaps it is all fantasy, all fiction, maybe it is imagined beyond that. At the end, you are brought right back into the present.

Clever writing, astute design. A gem on your bookshelf, get your copy now!

It is worth buying this pamphlet for looks alone (Yes! I know you should never judge a book by its cover). There are semi-opaque end pages featuring interesting photographs, look closely and all is revealed. The pamphlet is handmade and is a limited edition, mine is 5 of 48, so if you want one, I would suggest you use the links in this review and snap one up before they are all gone.

BUY YOUR COPY HERE

http://sarahhymas.blogspot.co.uk/p/shop.html

There is variance within the forty-eight. I’ve used two different colours for the internal pages: teal and cobalt. So please if you have a preference, do state it.

ALSO AVAILABLE:

Host(Waterloo, 2010) £10 inc p+p

“The voices, the stories, the detail and the imagery are powerful, superbly-crafted and original.” Bernardine Evaristo

“The poetry is earthy and takes a no-nonsense approach to setting out their journey from commuity-based god-fearing and pious, through to the complexity, toughness and verging on faithlessness, of modernity.” Anne Stewart in Artemis

“… excellent at capturing social and religious codes of behaviour, with the acuity of Austen or Alice Munro … Host is a tactile and muscular collection, rooted in the complexities and textures of the physical world. Hymas has created fresh and exuberant work that, at its best, captures the awe of being alive.“ Sarah Westcott

http://sarahhymas.net/