Normally I wouldn’t be plugging the book after next so soon, but with the crowdfund going, I’m sharing info on there, and thought I’d share it here too!
You might like to meet some of the poets, and I’ll start with those who have contributed a reward for the crowdfund. I will introduce more poets around another theme as we go along.
first up: Becky Brookfield, Joy Howard, K Angel, P Burton-Morgan, Rab Green and Steph Morris
Becky Brookfield is a Northern poet who writes about class, gender and nature. Recently she has been writing and teaching in Cairo. In 2018 she published ‘All the Heavens are ours’ in October 2018 Patchwork Magazine – Mental Health Edition. She has been a featured poet at a variety of performance events in Merseyside. She has been a contributor for the People and Dancefloors Project both as a poet and on one of their podcasts as a reviewer in 2020 and 2021.
Becky is offering a hand-illustrated copy of her poem Moon, or a personalised recording. here’s a taster:
I want the moon in my sky to wane over my lips…
Joy Howard has been writing poetry for over 40 years. It was coming out as lesbian that set the ball rolling. Her collection Exit Moonshine charts the ups and downs of what followed. She has run Grey Hen Press since 2008, publishing themed anthologies (23 so far) showcasing older women’s poetry.
Her own poems have appeared in several poetry journals, been widely anthologised and can be seen online at www.poetrypf.co.uk . She has three collections: Exit Moonshine (Grey Hen Press 2009), Refurbishment (Ward Wood Publications 2011) and Foraging (Arachne Press 2016) and we have published her in several previous anthologies.
Joy is offering a copy of her poetry collection that explores coming out in the 80’s Exit Moonshine.
Joy’s poem in Joy//Us is Don’t
don’t
tease you no okay
don’t make you laugh I’ll try…
K. Angel (they/them) has been published with the Tin House Open Bar, PANK, the New Flash Fiction Review, and elsewhere. A two-time participant in the HBMG Foundation’s National Winter Playwrights Retreat and shortlisted for the Virago FURIES Competition, their projects straddle many forms and genres, with a persistent fixation on consent, desire, intentional community, and metamorphosis interruptus. They live in London, where they sometimes perform as the singing country drag king TrucK.
K is offering a fiction manuscript review
their poem in Joy//us is Flint Knapping is Queer Now
These days I carry a rock in my pocket
that I found with you that day we walked
from Margate all the way around that hump
of worn coastline that former island
those beaches and cliffs…
P Burton-Morgan is a non-binary writer & director based in rural Somerset. In 2005 they founded Metta Theatre and have written/directed over 40 productions to date. They won the 2020 WGGB award for musical theatre book-writing on In The Willows. Their first verse play You Lay Your Hand Backwards on My Heart was shortlisted for the Bolton Octagon Prize in 2016 and later turned into an audio drama, and in 2022 they wrote a long form narrative poem to accompany Handel’s Messiah in the West End’s Drury Lane Theatre. This is their poetry publishing debut.
P is offering a personalised poem
their poem in Joy//Us is When I am Twelve a New Girl Joins Our School
tall girl
with caramel hair
will you be my friend?
Rab Green is a Scottish writer and artist based in London. He can be found at rabgreen.co.uk
Rab is offering a play script review.
Rab’s poem in Joy//Us is Probably Won’t Be a Church Service
I thought
about what I’d leave behind when I die, what would be said at my funeral,
my accomplishments all summed up: …
Steph Morris‘ poems have been published in his pamphlet Please don’t trample us; we are trying to grow! (Fair Acre Press) and in Rialto, Ambit, Ink Sweat & Tears, Under the Radar, Finished Creatures, The North, and in various anthologies and gardens. He was longlisted for the 2021 UK National Poetry Competition. His poetry translations have appeared in MPT and on no-mans-land.org and he translated Ilse Aichinger’s collection Squandered Advice (Seagull). In 2021 he was awarded an Arts Council England grant to develop his visual poetry, seen in Beir Bua Journal, Streetcake, Mercurius, and on various walls. He is an RLF fellow at Greenwich University.
Steph is offering riso prints and stencil prints of concrete poems.
Steph’s poem in Joy//Us is Legacy
Early days, and I found we were sitting out
on the street in the sun with a coffee,
holding hands, my love in pyjamas still,
alongside marigolds in pots…
I’d like to thank all these poets for their support for the crowdfund, and everyone who has backed us so far.
More poets and poems later in the week!
