In 2021, Nine Arches Press launched their nationwide Primers scheme for a sixth time, in search of exciting new voices in poetry, with Rishi Dastidar and Jane Commane as selecting editors. After reading through hundreds of anonymous entries, and narrowing down the choices from longlist to shortlist, three poets emerged as clear choices: Kym Deyn, Estelle Price and Fathima Zahra.Primers: Volume Six now brin...

In 2018, the Poetry School and Nine Arches Press launched their nationwide Primers scheme for a fourth time, in search of exciting new voices in poetry, with Kim Moore and Jane Commane as selecting editors. After reading through hundreds of anonymous entries, and narrowing down the choices from longlist to shortlist, three poets emerged as clear choices: Lewis Buxton, Amelia Loulli and Victoria Richards.Primers: Volume Four now collects together a showcase from each of the...

In 2019, Nine Arches Press launched their nationwide Primers scheme for a fifth time, in search of exciting new voices in poetry, with Jacqueline Saphra and Jane Commane as selecting editors. After reading through hundreds of anonymous entries, and narrowing down the choices from longlist to shortlist, three poets emerged as clear choices: Krystelle Bamford, Claire Cox and Hannah Jane Walker....

How to be a Poet is the brainchild of poet Jo Bell and editor Jane Commane. As a natural follow-on to the 52 Project of 2014, this book aims to help poets taking the next step in developing, working and participating in the wider creative community as a writer.How to be a Poet combines practical advice and topical mini-essays that examine both the technical and creative dimensions of being a poet. It's a no-nonsense manual where we...

Assembly Lines asks what it means to be here and now, in post-industrial towns and cities of the heartlands that are forever on the periphery. From schools and workplaces and lives lived in ‘a different town, just like this’, these poems take a historical perspective on the present day from the ground upwards – whether the geological strata that underpins a ‘dithering island’ or the ever-moving turf under a racehorses’ hooves.This is a new Midlands realism, precision-engineered, wh...

Imtiaz Dharker was born in Pakistan, grew up a Muslim Calvinist in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. Her main themes are drawn from a life of transitions: childhood, exile, journeying, home, displacement, religious strife and terror, and latterly, grief. She is also an accomplished artist, and all her collections are illustrated with her drawings, which form an integral part of her books. Over the Moon is her fifth book from Bloodaxe. These are poe...

Staying Human is the sequel to the Staying Alive trilogy of anthologies which have introduced many thousands of new readers to contemporary poetry. This fourth Bloodaxe world poetry anthology offers poetry lovers an even broader, international selection of 500 more ‘real poems for unreal times’, with a strong focus on 21st-century poems addressing current issues. The range of poetry here complements that of the first three anthologies: hundreds of thoughtful and passionate poems about livi...

Change your tools for storytelling, change your routine, learn a new form, engage with parts of the wider industry you have never had to previously. See what happens and report back. This was the challenge taken up by contributors to The N00bz: New adventures in literature, a joint project between if:book Australia and digital first publisher Editia.The book is a collection of writing about writing that documents pure curiosity and the quest to continually improve amidst r...

Carol Ann Duffy's outstanding first collection, Standing Female Nude, introduced readers to all they would come to love about her poetry. From lovers to wives to war photographers, the poems it contains range from the delicately poignant to the fiercely political, exploring memory, gender, childhood and place. Within it are also some of her best-known poems, including 'Education for Leisure', as well as, of course, the poem from which the collection takes its title.First p...

'These poems delight in a wily, mischievous, nonchalant negotiation between the affections and attachments of Muldoon's own childhood, family and place, and the ironic discriminations of a cool literary sensibility and historical awareness.' Times Literary Supplement

‘In drama, we are the creators. Like in a skeleton, the bones of drama only work together. The human context—the situation, the people and their relationships—are the flesh. The body is given shape and animated by the way we focus those basic elements, and how we place them in space and time. We breathe life into the body through the story and the tension we create, and we give it language and movement to express itself, clothing the drama with its mood and symbols.’In 198...

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE T.S ELIOT PRIZE AND COSTA POETRY AWARD 2013*'A stone is lobbed in '84,hangs like a star over Orgreave.Welcome to Sheffield. Border-land,our town of miracles...'- 'Scab'From the clash between striking miners and police to the delicate conflicts in personal relationships, Helen Mort's stunning debut is marked by distance and division. Named for a street in Sheffield, this is a collection that cherishes...