A glow to show the racing clouds
Hello everyone,I hope you are doing OK out there during this tough time. I am aware that talking about books right now can be seen as trite. I’ve felt that too—but am so thankful to have this project to focus on right now and I have been really humbled by so many amazing initiatives to share books at this really difficult and strange time.I just answered a nice thing this morning with my local bookshop Pages of Hackney. They’ve been amazing at getting books out to people on bikes and it made me feel I should give a big push to our next title, which I have done below. We have pushed back the publishing date of A K Blakemore’s book, Shia LaBeouf to September but you can still pre-order that—it is simply amazing and well worth the wait! As for online orders, I’m still going to the Post Office once a week in gloves and a mask and if you are able to support us, am offering free UK postage on all our products.The main thing I wanted to write about is our next book, Night Blooms by Angus Carlyle. I made a short film which also acts as a talking poem for ‘The Undarks’, one of my favourites in the collection. I’m really enjoying audio at the moment and the short, I hope, gives a good introduction to Carlyle’s photographic experiments in the forest as well. I’ve known Angus for a long time now and its been such a joy editing this work with him. We re-worked the dummy for this a number of times and I couldn’t be happier with the end result.The book is 64 pages long and approximately half poetic prose and half photographic. Our friends, Frontwards did a beautiful design based on a running trail lit by a head torch. We are taking pre-orders of Night Blooms now, and are offering the book for £8 with free UK postage and 20% off the cover prince for the next week. We are also offering free UK postage on all our products.
Angus Carlyle’s Night Blooms collects nocturnal explorations of an area of woodland close to his home on the South Coast of England. Poetic prose and photographic experiments document Carlyle’s chosen medium of running, an everyday act he has repeated across specific trails in solitude for years. In Night Blooms, public space becomes unrecognised – trespassed underfoot and collected.Lastly, here’s something to listen to during self isolation if you haven’t already; episode 2 of our podcast features Alanna McArdle, AK Blakemore, MIDDEX, Maike Hale-Jones, Eloise Hendy and Angus Carlyle. Click here to listen 🙂Thank you for readingRobin xApril 15, 2020Introducing Night Blooms
I am delighted to reveal the cover for Night Blooms, Angus Carlyle’s extraordinary new collection of poetry, landscape and photography. Night Blooms is a remarkable bookwork charting an exquisite series of South Coast nocturnal explorations—caught in motion over 64 full-colour pages. The book, designed by Frontwards Design, is a beautiful production and the third title in our ongoing series, New Words. Night Blooms is printed in a very limited run—don’t snooze on this! You can listen to Angus reading from the book on episode 2 of our podcast.***Scroll down for full details***
Angus Carlyle’s Night Blooms collects nocturnal explorations of an area of woodland close to his home on the South Coast of England. Poetic prose and photographic experiments document Carlyle’s chosen medium of running, an everyday act he has repeated across specific trails in solitude for years. In Night Blooms, public space becomes unrecognised – trespassed underfoot and collected.
We encounter the smells, noises, the presence of inhabitants; bats, a nightjar, laughter, concrete. A head torch provides a prism of vignetted light and acts as a portable studio, like a lantern to the understory of a secret yet shared space. Everyday objects take on a new status – shrine-like, sinister, glowing. The exhale of breath, bad weather, a deflated bouncy castle are seemingly snatched at pace from the air. If there is a constant character here, it is the blooms which remain more familiar, unwieldily and delicate. Night Blooms takes us up high – as territory, trails and terrain overlap and collide, re-assembled glimpses offer study caught in motion.
Pre-order the book
Night Blooms presents the exquisite traces of the night-runner as artist. Often an urgent poetry of action, yet with The delicate / Appearance of wreathes of smoke. Here is the runner’s pain of mantras drained empty, but also faith in the solidity of the world –
— Mark Goodwin
Angus Carlyle is interested in landscape and in other things besides. He works collaboratively and on his own. Publications include On Listening (co-edited with Cathy Lane), Autumn Leaves (as editor), In The Field and Rough Notes. His creative work frequently involves collaboration
Night Blooms teaches us that it is only through meaningful dialogue with our surroundings that we truly come to know them. This is an intimate, kinetic document of the South Coast woodlands; while the rest of us are sleeping Night Blooms is off, sharing moments with the night.”
— Isobel AndersonPodcast Episode 2
Here’s something to listen to during self isolation; episode 2 of our podcast features Alanna McArdle, AK Blakemore, MIDDEX, Maike Hale-Jones, Eloise Hendy and Angus Carlyle. Click here to listen 🙂
Thank you
OK thats it. I hope everyone is OK out there. Thank you for reading and thank you for supporting us; I know its a hard time for everyone right now. I’ve been so humbled by some of the amazing support I’ve seen for small press, booksellers and publishers in the last few weeks. There are too many people to mention but I want to particularly highlight 3 of Cups Press, Burning House Books and Pages of Hackney who have been doing such an amazing job during difficult times.
We have some amazing titles lined up this year and next and I can’t wait to share them with you.
Robin x
April 15, 2020
