Free Verse returns

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 Under: Reality Street


Free Verse, the poetry book fair, returns next month for the third year. The date to put in your diary is Saturday 7 September, from 10am-5pm. This year, having outgrown its previous venues, the 60+ participating presses and poetry organisations will be selling their wares at the Conway Hall, London. Reality Street will be there. 

This is the familiar site of the not-to-be-confused-with Small Publishers Fair, which has been running for many more years than that, usually in November. It looks like that may go ahead under different management this year, following the untimely death of its founder, Martin Rogers. However, Reality Street won't be participating this time.

The Small Publishers Fair has always been something of a dichotomy: artists' books on the one hand, poetry on the other, with a few - the publishers of visual poetry - straddling the gap. There was always an audience for the readings, organised over the years by West House Books, but few of the artists' book customers attended them. 

Free Verse, by contrast, the brainchild of Charles Boyle of CB editions, is entirely focused on poetry. But it spans the full spectrum of poetry publishing in the UK. Pretty well everybody. I mean, Faber & Faber will condescend to be there! Faber & Faber, Knives Forks & Spoons and If p then q in the same room - can you imagine? So there's guaranteed to be something you like and something you don't like. OK?

Maybe a few people will find they like something they previously were convinced they disliked. 

As for Reality Street, well, Peter Hughes will be there at noon reading from his great new book Allotment Architecture, which you can buy. (Why haven't you bought it already?) Andrea Brady would have been launching Cut From the Rushes, but finds she has to be in Germany that weekend. Never mind, her book will be on sale too. Along with lots of others. This is the only live event Reality Street is attending this year, so come and say hello and browse and buy.

In : Reality Street 

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Ken Edwards This blog is written by Ken Edwards, co-founder and editor/publisher of Reality Street, and it's mainly about the press. Ken's personal blog can now be found at http://www.kenedwardsonline.co.uk