Laureates's Choice 2016

We are offering our four Laureate’s Choice 2016 pamphlets at the discount price of £20 if bought together! The four pamphlets come in a limited edition slip case.

Geraldine Clarkson’s ‘Dora Incites the Sea-Scribbler to Lament’

Geraldine Clarkson lives in Warwickshire. Her poems have appeared widely in journals and anthologies, including The Poetry Review, Poetry (Chicago), and The Best British Poetry (Salt Publishing, 2014), and have also been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 during the 2015 and 2016 Proms seasons. A selection of her work was published in Primers Vol 1 (Nine Arches Press/The Poetry School, 2016), and she has a chapbook, Declare (Shearsman Books, 2016). Supported by Arts Council England, she is preparing her first full-length collection.

‘Geraldine Clarkson’s poems are musical, often playful incantations that delight in the power of words. Formally inventive and vivid with natural imagery.’ – Carol Ann Duffy

Zeina Hashem Beck’s ‘There Was and How Much There Was’

Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her first collection, To Live in Autumn, won the 2013 Backwaters Prize. Her second collection, Louder than Hearts, won the 2016 May Sarton NH Poetry Prize. She’s also the author of 3arabi Song, winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Forward Prize. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, and the Rialto, among others. She performs her poetry both in the Middle East and internationally. Her website is www.zeinahashembeck.com

‘Whether drawing on myth or fairytale, or writing directly from women’s experience, these are powerful poems by a new writer with a remarkable gift for storytelling.’ – Carol Ann Duffy

Mark Pajak’s ‘Spitting Distance’

Mark Pajak was born in Merseyside. His work has been published in Magma, The North and The Rialto and been highly commended in the Cheltenham Poetry and National Poetry Competitions. He is this year’s Apprentice Poet in Residence at Ilkley Literature Festival. His poem ‘Spitting Distance’ won first prize in the 2016 Bridport Prize.

‘Mark Pajak’s skillful poems keep themselves open, especially to childhood and adolescent experience. Even so, they are far from frail – their insight and imaginative verve make them robust as well as eloquent.’ – Carol Ann Duffy

Tom Sastry’s ‘Complicity’

Tom Sastry was born in 1974. He is a second generation Original. His mother is Originally English and his father Originally Indian. He grew up in Buckinghamshire and has lived in Bristol since 1999. He thinks that not belonging is more interesting than belonging. He has spent most of his life in bedrooms, classrooms and offices. He enjoys having to deny that he is an anarchist. Complicity is his first pamphlet.

‘Tom Sastry navigates the mysterious everyday in this honest and often funny collection, making friendships and love affairs new and strange.’ – Carol Ann Duffy