Back online

August 21, 2010
Apologies if you tried and failed to access this blog or the Reality Street site on 18-19 August. We were offline for a couple of days. The website host, Yola, had apparently been subjected to a hacker attack, and for one heartstopping instant when I read the emergency announcement I thought we might have lost both the Reality Street and Moors sites. However, a small techno-tweak happily restored business as usual eventually.

Meanwhile, let me take this opportunity to remind you that the Reality Street Summer Sale will shortly be entering its final week - your last chance to grab some fine poetry at knock-down prices!
 

Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : Reality Street 

 

The hollow men

July 30, 2010
"Feted British authors are limited, arrogant and self-satisfied" says a recent Guardian article. The piece, by Dalya Alberge, is based on an interview with Sussex University research professor, novelist and critic Gabriel Josipovici.

Josipovici's remarks are focused on such multi-awarded novelists as Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes, whose work he charges as hollow. Describing their success as a "mystery", he says: "It's an ill-educated public being fed by the media – 'This is wh...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : writing 

 

Expatriations

July 26, 2010
There's a piece of mine in the  "Expatriations" edition of Gangway (Issue 40). It's a dialogue forming the closing section of my book of fictions in progress, Down With Beauty (it appeared previously in a different version in a different context).
 
You have to click on "current issue".

The issue, edited by Helen Lambert, also includes writing from: José Kozer (translated by Mark Weiss), Vahni Capildeo, Laurie Duggan, Catherine Hales, Shelby Matthews, Kent MacCarter, Anne Elizabeth Moore, ...

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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : writing 

 

One more day

July 19, 2010
I'm awake. I have been granted another day. Maybe twenty, twenty-five years, who knows? Some charlatan is trying to push big society ideas at me. I don't buy it. I'm very fortunate. There is someone who cares. I was born into a world where Thelonious Monk existed. Not to mention Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, which came later. Desert blues. Still rocking. How low can I go? The sky is blue, the sea is green, a bicycle is being pedalled. Yesterday Nelson Mandela was 92. I shall, in celebration...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : music 

 

Reality Street summer sale

July 7, 2010
First day of the month I announced a big clearout on the Reality Street website. The idea was (a) clear some bookshelf space here; (b) get people reading some of the excellent books the press has published over the years rather than have them gather dust; (c) generate some cash for the press in the doldrums of summer; (d) draw attention to our rather nice website.

 Two days later I was absolutely overwhelmed by orders. I just sent out a whole bunch of packets this afternoon and more will follo...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : Reality Street 

 

Fanny Howe launch - brief report

June 23, 2010
In a rush this morning, as I have to travel back to London to catch up with old work colleagues (and in the process watch with trepidation England's last group match in the World Cup) - so just a brief message to report that Fanny Howe's Emergence from Reality Street was safely launched yesterday at a reading for the Blue Bus at The Lamb. London. Here's a rather poor photo snapped with my mobile phone:



Also reading was Tom Raworth, who prefaced his performance by reading a short selection from...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : Reality Street 

 

Mating season update (2)

June 7, 2010
The breeding season for Hastings' rooftop herring gulls is well under way, with chicks hatching all over the place. On our rooftop, the roof valley site has once again acquired considerable nesting debris but there is no sign of actual nesting here. However, on the top chimney at least one chick has hatched. You can see it below, just to the right of the middle chimney pot, while its parents stand guard. I would estimate it's a week or so old.



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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : Hastings 

 

New Reality Street books

May 26, 2010
It's been 15 years since Reality Street published O'Clock by Fanny Howe. It's hard to believe the press has been going that long (in fact, for 17 years in total). But anyway, it's high time we published another book by Fanny, and here it is, out this week and soon to be mailed out to Reality Street Supporters.



Emergence doesn't contain much that is completely new - what it is is a complete reimagining of some of Fanny's poetry originally published in the 1970s, 80s and 90s and now out of print...

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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : Reality Street 

 

The Whole Island

May 17, 2010


I first visited Cuba in 1982, just before the Falklands War broke out. I've always been fascinated with the country - its politics, its music and (because of my bilingual background) its literature. 

On that first visit, I made it one of my projects to scour Havana's bookshops for contemporary poetry. I didn't really know what I was looking for, but it certainly wasn't the Marxist-Leninist tomes and Spanish translations of Agatha Christie novels that seemed to form the bulk of the stock. In th...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : writing 

 

David Chaloner, 1944-2010

May 11, 2010


I'm sorry to report that David Chaloner died on 10 May after an eighteen-month illness. Born in Cheshire in 1944, he moved to Manchester, where he became involved in poetry and jazz, his poetry being included in Michael Horovitz's seminal anthology Children of Albion. Later he founded One magazine, and in recent years had been dividing his time between London and Amsterdam. His fine Collected Poems was published in 2005. My sympathies to his family and friends.

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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : writing 

 
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About ...


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