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"Ah-oh, smokestack lightning
Shinin', just like gold
Why don't ya hear me cryin'?"
Howling Wolf
Smokestack champions poets who are unconventional, unfashionable, radical or left-field and who are working a long way from the metropolitan centres of cultural authority.
Smokestack is interested in the World as well as the Word.
"In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times."
Bertolt Brecht
Smokestack believes that poetry is a part of and not apart from society.
"and on every side
smokestacks were dancing on rooftops."
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Smokestack does not think "difficulty" in poetry is a virtue or that poetry is a place in which to hide.
Smokestack argues that if poetry does not belong to everyone it is not poetry.
"Smokestack has a great squad of radical poets lined up for its first season. I predict that the team will roll like thunder, strike like lightening and electrify British poetry."
Adrian Mitchell
1536. England appears to be on the edge of civil war. On one side are Henry VIII and the modern, centralising Tudor state. On the other are a thousand years of tradition, custom and belief. The Seer Sung Husband tells the story of the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Northern rebellion that briefly defied the authority of Church and State. Tobias Shipton, carpenter and husband of the Yorkshire witch and soothsayer Old Mother Shipton, weaves a wyrd tale of love and loyalty, rebellion and royal retribution.
"An antidote to the plague of anecdotes wishing they were poems."
Sean O'Brien
More about Bob Beagrie's The Seer Sung Husband
Allan Jackdaw, an unremembered early twentieth-century poet undertakes a fantastical journey on the hidden Sea-Green Line of the London Underground. Along the way he meets various shady and variously shaded characters - including the accidental capitalist Short Shanks the Shopkeeper, the scribbling Hermit of Hercules Buildings, The Turpentine Prophet, and the Ghost of a Poet. A strong, imaginative narrative which ventures into a world of Blakeian optimism, bringing his vision of Jerusalem into the present day.
More about Keir Hardie Street by Alan Morrison
Deborah Tyler-Bennett's new collection is a celebration of the world of the English dandy, its gorgeous peacock feathers and fading glamour. Her cast of eccentric and complicated characters entertain their listeners at the bar, flashy and flamboyant as Brighton's fantasy Pavilion, revealing the sad truths and disturbing secrets behind their cheap make-up.
More about Pavilion by Deborah Tyler-Bennett
Full list of Smokestack publications.
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Order Smokestack books from Inpress.
Trade orders from:
Central Books,
99 Wallis Road,
London E9 5LN
Telephone: 0845 4589911
To order direct from Smokestack Books (please add 50p postage & packing), or for further information, contact:
PO Box 408,
Middlesbrough TS5 6WA
Telephone: 01642 813997
Smokestack Books is partnered with Inpress
Smokestack Books is supported by the Arts Council of England (North East) Lottery Grants for the Arts and Middlesbrough Borough Council.
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Last update: 5th February 2010.
