in the hand is the result of a collaboration between Mal Earl and Sam Smith
Or put it this way, I provided the poems and Mal's exceptional artwork took them to a whole new level.
http://malearl.com
Copies available for £3.50 each, including postage, which only applies to those living in the UK. If living elsewhere and wanting a copy I'm happy to negotiate the extra postage.
A New Acmeism : erbacce-press
a chapbook by Sam Smith
The introduction asserts… ‘At about the same time, early 1900s, that Imagism - espoused by the likes of Hilda Doolittle, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams - arose in the West, over in the East Acmeism was growing out of an almost identical reaction against Symbolism.Nikolai Gumilev, Anna Andreevna Akhmatova and Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam set out to rid poetry of mysticism and Symbolism’s excessive allusiveness. Anna Akhmatova defined Acmeismas “...a return to the poetic principles of clarity, concision and the precise expression of emotional experience.” / As they sought, over a century ago, to restore ‘concreteness’ and ‘immediacy’ to poetic language so too now has come the time to slough off our latterday accretion of unnecessary verbiage and to try again….
ISBN 978-1-907878-74-9 £3.99 from the author — price (applies to UK only) includes postage: please make cheques payable to ‘Sam Smith’ 38 Pwllcarn Terrace, Blaengarw, Bridgend, South Wales, CF32 8AS)
or via PayPal -
canoe: an erbacce press chapbook £4.00 http://www.erbacce-press.com/
"As a collection it links a cohesive storyline: the rain - the lure of the circus - the flood - the elephant. Each poem is a drop into waters that run deep. / An unassuming treasure. A bargain. Recommended." Carol Thistlethwaite: Carillon Magazine
"As a collection it links a cohesive storyline: the rain - the lure of the circus - the flood - the elephant. Each poem is a drop into waters that run deep. / An unassuming treasure. A bargain. Recommended." Carol Thistlethwaite: Carillon Magazine
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An Atheist’s Alphabetical Approach to Death : erbacce press http://www.erbacce-press.com/
This chapbook is a result of 'An Atheist's Alphabetical Approach to Death' ending up in the final 4 (out of 1,200 entries) of the Erbacce 2009 Competition.
‘....irreverent, intelligent, provocative and unpretentious he provokes me to smile, to debate and to appreciate his stubborn honesty.... words for Smith are a functional yet beautiful vehicle, sort of Rolls Royce convertibles with ladders and bags of cement strapped across the gold-plated body work....’ Alan Corkish
This chapbook is a result of 'An Atheist's Alphabetical Approach to Death' ending up in the final 4 (out of 1,200 entries) of the Erbacce 2009 Competition.
‘....irreverent, intelligent, provocative and unpretentious he provokes me to smile, to debate and to appreciate his stubborn honesty.... words for Smith are a functional yet beautiful vehicle, sort of Rolls Royce convertibles with ladders and bags of cement strapped across the gold-plated body work....’ Alan Corkish
'In his Introduction to DARK TALES, Sam Smith tells us, These pieces were written to be performed specifically at the Nunney Jazz Café on All Souls Night 2005.
The beautiful cover image, and other images throughout the chapbook are by Shelley C Smith...... These poems constitute a major achievement. The razoring pain of their writing screams at the reader through the marks on the page. Smith does it tough, makes no concessions, builds himself no emotional hidey-holes, and faces his monsters all the way. The writing in the poems blows our minds. It took enough for me just to read them. They are too harrowing; taking me to where poetry has no right to go. But when I finished and closed the book, I knew that this, of course, is precisely where poetry must take its readers — to the brink. Such poems, read with the backing of the Nunney Jazz Café band would certainly induce laughter, but there would be an uncertainty, an ambiguity in the laughter.' Patricia Prime: NHI Online Review
'I would love to hear this work in performance, because a great deal of the effect depends on accumulation and repetition. It's poetry written firmly inside the oral tradition .... "Within each mind is a well of darkness" the poet tells us at the start. Then, bit by bit, he introduces the "monsters" which "come scrabbling up/ out of this well of darkness". And very nasty they are too. This is Stephen King in verse form.... If, like me, you enjoy creepy horror and relish the scream effect, this is enjoyable and cathartic. A lot of fun with an uneasily serious edge—especially at the very end, where there is a magnificent twist, which I won't give away here. You'll just have to read it…' Helena Nelson: Sphinx
£3.50
