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Small press. Big impact.


Pighog is a small press based in Sussex, England.
We are committed to the publication of unique voices.
We believe language is energy.

 

LATEST NEWS

MILK MAKES MICHAEL MARKS AWARD SHORTLIST

It's official! Sarah Jackson's Milk has been shortlisted for the Michael
Marks Award for an outstanding work of poetry published in pamphlet
form in the UK during 2008. Congratulations to Sarah and to the other shortlisted entrants. The winners will be announced at a special event at the British Library on Wednesday June 24th.

 

TWITTER THEE!

You can now follow Pighog on Twitter www.twitter.com/pighog

 

PIGHOG FACEBOOK GROUP

Pighog has launched its own Facebook Group - drop in and say hello.

 

COMING SOON:

JULY DATE FOR SUIT OF LIGHTS

Tom Cunliffe's highly praised Suit of Lights will be published in July.

'Tom Cunliffe's fresh, energetic poems relish risk and experimentation -
often differing so much from each other that they offer no cosy

certainties, about themselves, language, or the people, situations,

ideas or worlds to which they allude.' Catherine Smith

'Tom's work is full of memorable imagery and he has a rebellious streak, with which he courageously challenges poetic conventions.' Sarah Wardle

 

THE POET'S NOTEBOOK, TWEET BY TWEET

In a unique initiative, Pighog will be publishing The Poet's Notebook by Brendan Cleary as a series of free tweets from June 1st.

The Notebook is a superb guide to improving your poetry from one of
today's leading teachers. Written in the form of short poems it's ideal for distribution by micro-instalment.

To make sure you receive all the tweets, follow Pighog on Twitter now.

 

PIGHOG IN THE NEWS

'There are, or maybe I've only just become aware of them, an increasing number of Small Presses producing work of high quality...Publications by Pighog... are increasingly elegant and sophisticated: I'm looking at Cloudfish by John McCullough, Fast by Hugh Dunkerley, and The Beach Generation by John O'Donoghue.'

The Rialto, issue 64

Read more reviews of Pighog Press by clicking here.


POETRY


RECENTLY PUBLISHED

MILK by Sarah Jackson
Shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award

Beautifully crafted and highly original, the poetry of Milk is testament to Sarah Jackson's astonishing imagination and skill.

'It does my heart good to read poems like hers.'

Brendan Cleary

'Sarah Jackson's poems are dark, strange stories, immaculately crafted. Surprising, dextrous, sometimes shocking, they compel the reader into uncertain territory. This is an assured first pamphlet from a cool and

original new voice.'

Polly Clark

Milk is Sarah Jackson's debut pamphlet. It explores the space in between dreams and maps a dangerous reality that is only skin deep. Dark and often foreboding, these poems travel into an underworld where she unearths, between textures of childhood, sexuality and filial bonds, something of the abject lying in wait for us all.


I'LL BE BACK BEFORE YOU KNOW IT by Maria Jastrzebska

The second in our International Series

POLSKA YEAR 2009-10

Maria Jastrzebska was born in Warsaw in 1953 and came to England as a small child when her family escaped from Poland. She studied Developmental Psychology at Sussex University and lives in Brighton.

Her early work was popularised by the women’s presses and magazines

of the 1980s and 1990s. Her poem The Good Immigrant was used by teachers in schools and colleges. Her work has appeared in anthologies such as The New British Poetry (Paladin, 1988), and more recently

Parents: An Anthology of Poems by Women Writers (Enitharmon, 2000)

and Images of Women (Arrowhead, 2006). She co-edited Pighog's Poetry South anthology and Whoosh!, the anthology of queer writing.

Her poems have been translated into Polish, Japanese, Finnish, Slovenian and French. Her drama Dementia Diaries sold out in the 2009 Eastbourne Festival, and following her involvement at Oxford Poetry Festival her work will be included in the anthology See How I Land from Oxford Poets And Exiled Writers to be published in September by Heaven Tree Press.

'I’ve always been concerned with borders and boundaries,' says Maria, 'between countries, cultures, languages, between social and sexual identities, health and illness.'

George Szirtes has commented “Maria Jastrzebska’s poems open out like adventures in a dual land that is both here and elsewhere. The elsewhere is both place and history: the one gives life to the other, the place to the history, the elsewhere to the here, the fable to the reality. The mixture is rich and clear as alcoholic spirits.”

'Maria Jastrzebska’s poems contain an element of bi-polarity in the best sense of the term. The shadow and tenor of two tongues, cultures, histories, and sexualities are deftly embedded in her poetry — as is her use of forms, both in her traditional couplets and prose poems. She is willing to take risks, unafraid to display passion, and at the same time writes controlled intelligent verse. I’ll Be Back Before You Know It is a carefully considered collection of new poems.
— Sudeep Sen, author of Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems [HarperCollins]

ORDER YOUR COPY NOW!


THE FULL LIST


Pighog's International Series
Surreal Man by Ciaran O'Driscoll
I'll be back before you know it by Maria Jastrzebska

 

Pighog's Sussex Series
The Beach Generation by John O'Donoghue
Cloudfish by John McCullough
Dancing to Motown by Lorna Thorpe
Fast by Hugh Dunkerley
Girl in the Air by Ellen DeVries
Jackson by Brendan Cleary

Milk by Sarah Jackson
The Nutter in the Shrubbery by John Davies
Requiem for a Typewriter by Moss Rich
A Solitary Pine Tree in Sussex by Tim Beech


Full collections

Shedman by John Davies


Anthologies
Poetry South The Anthology

Whoosh! A Queer Writing South Anthology

 

Box Sets

The Pighog Sussex Series limited edition box set



WHOOSH! A QUEER WRITING SOUTH ANTHOLOGY

77pp     ISBN 978-1-906309-05-3    £8.99 plus £3 p&p 

Whoosh! is an anthology of work by nine new queer writers based in the South East.  Whoosh! appeared during the 2008 Brighton and Hove Pride Festival, launched with an evening of readings from anthology contributors and other established queer writers from the region.






MORE INFO





THE PIGHOG POETRY BOX SET

 

The Ideal Present!

Unique numbered collector’s editions of five poetry pamphlets from one of Britain’s most innovative small presses

Now available - numbered box sets 030-040 include:

A Solitary Pine Tree in Sussex by Tim Beech

The Nutter in the Shrubbery by John Davies

Cloudfish by John McCullough
The Beach Generation by John O'Donoghue

Girl in the Air by Ellen DeVries

Special Price £30.00 plus £4 P&P

Normally each book is £8 plus £3 p&p, so the box set gives a saving of £10 plus £3 p&p per booklet.

For information on individual pamphlets see below.





Tim Beech A SOLITARY PINE TREE IN SUSSEX

24pp     ISBN 0-9542443-5-4     £8.00 plus £3 p&p 


Poetry by a powerful voice in the tradition of Ted Hughes and Geoffrey Hill. Beech's keen observation of mammal, bird and landscape is crafted through a love of form and rhythm and is often used to frame questions about his unique spiritual quest.




MORE INFO





Brendan Cleary JACKSON

12pp    ISBN 0-9542443-2-X    2004    UK £8.00 plus £3 p&p 

This special selection brings the shadowy character of Jackson to our attention - hovering on the edge of the ordinary, hidden in the everyday, skirting appetites and urges, losses and denials, all balanced in a conjuring of words.

The Poet's Notebook by Brendan Cleary will be published via Twitter from June 1st




MORE INFO





John Davies SHEDMAN

80PP    ISBN 978-1-906309-01-5   £11.99 plus £3 p&p

'There's a wealth of poetry here - and by that I mean a sensibility that's been working quietly away... accumulating all the virtues a poet must seek - wisdom, emotional depth, and the patience to piece together, word by word, line by line, image by image, a poem like Clothes of Grey, which takes all of its givens - of genre, of form, of tradition - and through diligent focus twists them and makes all them completely darkly brilliantly brightly new.'

John O'Donoghue




John Davies THE NUTTER IN THE SHRUBBERY

28pp   ISBN 978-1-906309-00-8    £8.00 plus £3 p&p


Pighog's first pamphlet 'The Nutter in the Shrubbery' by John Davies was a great success. it's been out of print for a while but has now been redesigned and reissued.

The original spiral bound edition with photographs by the poet is now a collector's item. The new edition with a new ISBN number has been designed to match the popular B5 format of the other Pighog pamphlets in the series.




Ellen De Vries GIRL IN THE AIR
22pp ISBN 0-9542443-9-7  £8.00 plus £3 p&p

'Ellen de Vries is a poet who explores crossroad areas in our lives, places where reality and beyond-reality meet. She often evokes an environment where threat is present, in relationships between parent and child, between lovers; but threat gentled by a lyric originality that surprises and involves the reader at a deep level.

Her comprehension of our human longing for possibility and transformation is present everywhere in her poems, poignant and yet imbued with wit. Her language is sheer and confident.  See, for instance, her poem Arabic where a pomegranate is shown, beautifully, to exemplify the power and richness of language itself.'

Penelope Shuttle

MORE INFO



Maria Jastrzebska I'LL BE BACK BEFORE YOU KNOW IT

28PP   ISBN 978-1-906309-06-0  £8 plus 2 p&p

This collection with a backbone of prose poems is the second in Pighog's International Series but could just as well be the tenth in Pighog's Sussex Series as Polish poet Maria Jastrzebska is now based in Brighton.

'Maria Jastrzebska's poems open out like adventures in a dual land that is both here and elsewhere. The elsewhere is both place and history: the one gives life to the other, the place to the history, the elsewhere to the here,the fable to the reality. The mixture is rich and clear as alcoholic spirits.'
George Szirtes




John McCullough CLOUDFISH

28PP  ISBN 0-9542443-7-0    £8 plus £3 p&p

‘In these poems, pin-sharp insight is combined with surreal cameos of a
flouncy, eccentric city where anything could happen – even the clouds are
raiders "stealing in from the Downs".  The backdrop is magnificent views of

the sky and a sense of eavesdropping on the old gods hiding there.

His writing is compelling and will do your spirit good.’

Jackie Wills




John O'Donoghue THE BEACH GENERATION

30PP  ISBN 978-1-906309-02-2   £8 plus £3 p&p

'The Beach Generation celebrates the city of Brighton by saluting the poets who are helping to influence its savvy and stylish future.

'These are the men and women who move amongst the cognoscenti of  the twittens, the midnight revellers in late night bars, the clubbers strolling along the strand, the early risers and late to bed of Brighton’s seaside cafés and briny pubs.  The Beach Generation are small in number but they’re not slight. If you listen, you can hear them calling, like the ocean held inside a shell…'

Bridget Whelan




Ciaran O'Driscoll SURREAL MAN

36pp    ISBN 0-9542443-8-9   £10.00 plus £3 p&p

Launched at Cuisle, the Limerick International Poetry Festival, Ireland, in 2006, this wonderful collection demonstrates a master poet at work in a variety of forms, voices and moods. Paintings by Giorgio de Chirico and Rene Magritte provide a springboard for Ciaran O’Driscoll’s engagement with the theme of surrealism. Dark absurdities and contradictions, banalities and pretensions are exposed by O'Driscoll's characteristically cutting wit and here and there a beacon of hard-won hope lights a way.

A wonderful eye for the absurd.... A strong nucleus of passion.

Vincent Woods Writing in the West.

We need such hard-won high spirits.

John Montague

 

Ciaran O'Driscoll is a poet of the first order.

Pearse Hutchinson The RTE Guide

MORE INFO



POETRY SOUTH The Anthology

94PP    ISBN 978-1-906309-04-6   £11.99 plus £3 p&p

Poetry South brings you the latest work from fifteen of the south’s liveliest writers. Rich in voice and tone it provides a vivid snapshot of the developing face of contemporary poetry across the region.

Coming from both new and established writers this collection includes

informative notes from the contributors giving an insight into their working methods and how particular poems have evolved.

This collection passionately reveals that poetry remains a potent force on the southern arts scene, whilst providing a valuable document in promoting contemporary poetry to an ever wider audience.




Moss Rich REQUIEM FOR A TYPEWRITER

24pp    ISBN 0-9542443-4-6    £8.00 plus £3 p&p 

A new collection celebrating Moss Rich, the doyen of Brighton's poetry scene
now in his nineties, who has been writing poetry since the 1930s.

Satirical, funny, poignant and pointed, Moss directs his wit at subjects including the Orkneys and his Olivetti typewriter, devaluation and death, moths and mothers, and poets and poetry workshops.

”It print speaks as gently to your heart as blood flows softly
through your veins, you will understand why I stop to read, and
read again.”

MORE INFO



Lorna Thorpe DANCING to MOTOWN

24pp    ISBN 0-9542443-3-8    £8.00 plus £2 p&p 
Photographs by John Chapman

Winner of the Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice award for Autumn 2005.

With an unflinching and wry candour, Thorpe wrestles with love, sex and the disenchantments of dating past forty. Her poems confront the difficult emotions of longing, loss and unfulfilled hope, always with a musical accompaniment.

MORE INFO


PIGHOG PARTNERS

Check out our international publisher partners and links.

Pighog gratefully acknowledges the support of Fenner Paper www.fennerpaper.co.uk
Colourset 100% recycled fly leaf papers in The Beach Generation, Cloudfish, Fast, The Nutter in the Shubbery and Shedman.


CONTACT US

Address: Pighog Press, P.O. Box 145, Brighton BN1 6YU
Email: info@pighog.co.uk

ORDERING BY POST

Please send your order with your name and address to:
Pighog Press, P.O. Box 145, Brighton BN1 6YU, England, with a cheque for the total amount made payable to Pighog Press crossed account payee.

SUBMISSION POLICY

PLEASE DON'T SEND ANY MATERIAL UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN ASKED TO DO SO.

Please don't waste your time and money by sending us unsolicited manuscripts by post or email. We scout for new voices all the time. Your best chance of being published by Pighog is to work hard at developing your own talent and skills, and to go along to reading and events to read your own poetry. We are very good at spotting talent and some of Britain's leading pamphlet and poetry book publishers have picked up on poets we first introduced to readers.



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