London Launch Readings for Rack Press Poets

The Welsh poetry pamphlet imprint Rack Press is to be relaunched in January 2006 with three new titles: The Green Buoy by John Barnie, Lute Variations by the sixteenth century French poet, Louise Labé, with a range of English “improvisations” of two of her sonnets by Richard Price, and a longer collection The Narrators by Nicholas Murray.

The launch reading for these pamphlets is being held on Wednesday 11th January at 6.30pm at the Swedenborg Hall, 20-21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1. Free admission. For further details call 07817 424 560.

Rack Press was started in 1995 by Nicholas Murray; the newly relaunched Press hopes to publish two or three short poetry pamphlets a year. Due to existing commitments, however, it cannot currently accept unsolicitied manuscripts.

The first crop of poets include the leading Welsh poet and editor of Planet, John Barnie; the prominent Scottish poet, Richard Price, whose collection Lucky Day has been shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize due to be announced in January 2006; and the Liverpool-born poet and biographer, Nicholas Murray, whose biography of Aldous Huxley was shortlisted for the Marsh Biography Prize in 2003.

Commenting on the launch, publisher Nicholas Murray said: “We have seen in recent decades a shift in British poetry publishing towards smaller (and not so small) non-metropolitan presses that are bringing out some of the most interesting and innovative work while so many of the former big names in poetry publishing play safe and avoid risk.”

Rack Press publications are published and printed in Wales. In London, Rack Press titles are available from the London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, WC1A 2JL. Tel 020 7269 9030. Readers in the Welsh Marches, home of Rack Press, can obtain copies of pamphlets from The Rowan Tree, High Street, Presteigne, Powys LD8 2BE (01544 260202). Also available from Pemberton's, 4 High Town, Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5AE (01497 820159).