Moors at the Stag

November 27, 2009
Well, now, here's something else. This was recorded by our good neighbours Shirley & Don at the Stag Inn, Hastings Old Town, last Saturday night (21st). There are two other songs now uploaded to YouTube. It was an excellent evening. I look a bit too serious (nervous) here, but I did enjoy myself, honest.  Great playing from Jenny, Richard and Andy, and storming solo by Elaine.

Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : music 

 

Live Reality report

November 16, 2009
The Small Publishers Fair at the Conway Hall (13/14 November) was good, if not quite great. There seemed to be more presses exhibiting their wares than ever before, and it was encouraging to see more poetry presses to balance out the artists' book people - eg Shearsman, attending for the first time.

I'd never been for the whole of the Friday before this year, and was surprised at how much activity there was throughout that day. It made me anticipate a truly overwhelming Saturday, but it never ...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : Reality Street 

 

Live Reality

November 11, 2009
Once again, I'm attending the annual Small Publishers Fair in London this coming weekend on behalf of Reality Street. As I don't have a day job any longer, I shall for the first time be able to man the stand on the Friday as well as the Saturday.

I'll be bringing as much stock as I can carry on the train in a wheelie bag and a shoulder bag, which should include copies of most of Reality Street's titles published over the past five or six years - plus some oldies but goodies and slight seconds...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : Reality Street 

 

Maggie O'Sullivan & Tony Cook

November 6, 2009
A wonderful online archive has been opened up at Maggie O'Sullivan's website: high quality images of 165 paintings, mixed media sculptures and works on paper by the late Antony Cook, dated between 1970-2003. The works are abstract almost from the start, many at first glance minimalist in content but revealing on closer inspection an extraordinary richness of texture and movement. You can click on each of the 165 thumbnails to be delivered a higher resolution version of the same work.


untitled ...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : visual art 

 

In Town this week

October 13, 2009
I thought this from the redoubtable Vahni Capildeo and cohorts was well worth a look, even if you don't get the full benefit unless you happen to travel to (or live in) Trinidad (now the chill is arriving, I wish ...).



The magazine is fragmented/distributed across townscapes for folks to encounter at random. A much better idea than the patronising, airbrushed, subsidised package that is  "Poems on the Underground" in London - cf the ghastly traduction of WCW below:



(original image here)

They sho...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : writing 

 

from the Old School

October 9, 2009
Kent Johnson, Quite Interesting US Poet/Annoying Bastard (delete according to preference), has posted a blog here under the image of a Union Flag (he says it's upside down) about what he describes as the New British School of poetry.

He talks of 'a con­stel­la­tion of per­fectly excit­ing UK poets writ­ing “in wake of” the Cambridge-​based greats J. H. Prynne and Tom Raworth– who could be seen, in their two pres­ences, genealog­i­cally speak­ing, as some­what to their later...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : writing 

 

Songbook

September 23, 2009
Having a new book out is still a bit of a thrill, I must admit, even when it's a book of work that is not that new. I have to thank Tony Frazer, of Shearsman Books, for the good production job he did on Songbook, which makes its debut around about now.

The title is a bit of a misnomer, I suppose. An intentional misnomer. Let me explain. I have recently been getting back to doing something I last did in my 20s, writing songs - "proper" songs with verses and choruses and middle eights, and much...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : writing 

 

Introducing Botsotso

September 1, 2009
Today Reality Street publishes Botsotso: an anthology of contemporary South African poetry. Here's what I wrote for the preface of the book:



In April 2004, at the Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry (CCCP), I encountered Ike Mboneni Muila from Soweto. He had previously been compared by someone to Tom Raworth, for his high-octane delivery. Opening the Saturday evening session, he amazed me by riffing flawlessly and rapidly in several languages: Afrikaans, English and more than one nativ...

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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : Reality Street 

 

unparalysed

August 25, 2009
Suddenly another August is almost over, and there are signs the strange and beautiful paralysis of summer is coming to an end. It's been my first summer in many years without a job, and without the prospect of one for the autumn. Redundancy has led to some novel outcomes. I could never have predicted a year ago that I would have spent much of this season playing bass guitar and singing with an Eastern-European-influenced band (founded by Elaine and myself), in front of local audiences ranging...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : undetermined 

 

Moors on record

July 27, 2009
This week I take delivery of a limited run of a seven-track CD which the Moors - the band I co-founded with Elaine - will use to promote themselves. The CD will be launched at our forthcoming gig as part of the free Hastings Beach Concerts, where it will be on sale at £5,  £1 of which goes to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The concerts, attracting thousands of people, are an annual event, marking the beginning of Hastings Old Town Week, and benefiting the RNLI locally.

We're on a...
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Posted by Ken Edwards. Posted In : music 

 
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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