Sardonic, arresting and fiercely feminist: split ends/rooms and the blue room published today

 

Last Thursday we kick started 2020 with a sold out reading event at Pages Cheshire Street to celebrate the first two New Words titles; the blue room by Eloise Hendy and split ends/rooms by Alanna McArdle. Two rising female voices in UK poetry, Naomi Morris and Karen Correa da Silva also delivered astonishing readings. >>> Order today w/ free postage<<< Upcoming titles include new works by a host of distinctive voices, including poets (A.K. Blakemore, Emily S Cooper, Angus Carlyle) writers, translators (Michelle Steinbeck, Jen Calleja, Maike-Hale Jones, Middex) and many others. Sometime last year I started a process to try and make a new shape of book that would be less standardised than our previous titles one that could house a new series, New Words. After a false start and many book dummy’s we ended up with something new and exciting an oversized, wider pamphlet that gave more space for text and bold design with a loop binding. The series has been printed on heavy-stock recycled paper and was beautifully designed by Frontwards Design who took my flimsy brief to draw inspiration from a 6×7 medium-format photo frame and made something really exciting. Anyway, I couldn’t be happier about this series and I hope you like it too. They are in the shops soon via Cornerhouse and on our site with free UK postage. **Scroll down for our 4 books for £20 flash sale.** Eloise Hendy: the blue room Eloise Hendy’s debut is a candid collection of poems that are sardonic, arresting and fiercely feminist. the blue room is dotted with sharp imagery—the heart rate of smashed glass, a dentist with stiff fingers, regurgitating confetti. Hendy’s brilliant voice seems to relish the role of both salvager and confidante of memory. Retold glimpses punctuate the narrative, from the unpredictability of cyclical relationships to the rhythm of the things we grasp. >>>Order today w/ free postage<<< Alanna McArdle: split ends The residue of trauma is ever present in Alanna McArdle’s stunningly-achieved debut poetry collection split ends. These are 12 confrontational poems that swell and contort perspective, conversing with and following one another. McArdle’s words are emotional, arresting, and obtrusive. She writes, “crepuscular, fetid, she sniffs like a fox / screams like a fox” and as the ripples retreat, she leaves readers to decide which way they view the conversation. >>>Order today w/ free postage<<< “Alanna McArdle’s poetics carves for itself a place between insouciant wit and the stingingly vulnerable. It claims agency and reclaims symbolic space over the terrible, the oppressive, by biting down hard on the articulate nerve of the thing. I’m excited by this pamphlet, and so so glad it exists.” —Wayne Holloway-Smith Eloise Hendy is a poet and writer living in London. Her work has appeared in Ambit, Frieze, The Tangerine, and The Stinging Fly, amongst others, and she was recently shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize 2018 Alanna McArdle is a writer from London. She has had poetry published in print and online in Shabby Doll House, Prelude Magazine, Poems in Which, For Every Year, and The Chapess, among others, and she was recently included in episode three of the podcast Poets In Bed. Her non-fiction and journalism has featured in Pitchfork, Crack Magazine, The NME, The Talkhouse, Noisey, and Broadly. Her short story ‘Butter’ was shortlisted for the 2018 Desperate Literature short fiction prize. Flash sale! Click the image below to get all four of our books for £20, UK postage paid Thank you for all your support last year Robin x