Light Pressure gets even lighter

A milestone.   The first book to be published by Pitt Street Poetry is available from today.

Consistent with our plan to publish reprints of classic Australian poetry as well as a selective new list, we are delighted to advise that our initial offering is a reprint of John Foulcher’s first collection Light Pressure, originally published by Angus & Robertson in 1983 at the time Les Murray was the poetry editor at that distinguished Australian firm.

In its day Light Pressure was a national bestseller and reprinted a number of times – as unusual at that time for a poetry book as it is today!  Several of the poems in its pages have been widely anthologised and were used for years as set texts for final year English examinations across the country.  More importantly, they have become a memorable part of the literary landscape for the baby boomer generation.  Despite this, as is so often the case with Australian poetry, the book has been out of print for over 25 years.

Pitt Street Poetry is very pleased to make Light Pressure available once again to a new generation of Australian poetry enthusiasts – in a pocket format and at a very reasonable price.  In keeping with our philosophy of using a mix of traditional and contemporary technologies, it is also available for download as an e-book in both the e-pub and mobi formats, which means it can be read on virtually any popular e-book reader, including the Kindle, the iPad (or iPhone) and the Sony reader.

Light Pressure has been reprinted using the latest print-on-demand techniques.  So as long as our imprint survives it will never be out of print again.  It is the first in what we plan to be an exemplary series of reprints of classic modern Australian poetry.

We welcome suggestions of other hard-to-obtain classic collections which deserve revival in this way.

Watch this space for news of John Foulcher’s forthcoming new collection The Sunset Assumption which will be published by Pitt Street Poetry in July.

 

 

Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow

O, know’st thou not his looks are my soul’s food?
Pity the dearth that I have pined in,
By longing for that food so long a time.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

Two Gentlemen of Verona

 

Perhaps a longwinded way of announcing that the e-book version of John Foulcher’s Light Pressure for Kindle is now available in the emporium.

 

Makeover time

As regular visitors can readily see, the web site for Pitt Street Poetry has had a substantial makeover in preparation for the launch of our first title next week.

And the shop is up, with just one product, the e-book of John Foulcher’s 1983 classic first volume of poetry Light Pressure.   To be frank, it’s there as a test of the shopping technology as much as anything, but don’t let that stop you from buying a copy!   The pocket paperback edition of Light Pressure  will follow in the next few days, and then a charming pamphlet by London poet Tim Cumming.

And then some new ones…

 

and the winner is…

Well, at a standing-room only presentation ceremony charmingly compered by the prize’s founder, Adrian Wiggins, judge Kate Middleton announced that the 2012 Sydney Poetry Prize was won by performer and poet Skye Loneragan for a poem called ‘I can’t decide (or Rushcutters Bay)’ which you can read for yourself here.

The highly commended poems were ‘Dawn over Diamond Head’ by Brent Clough and ‘Love Poem’ by Adam Aitken.

Read all about it at the Sydney Poetry site.   And entries for the 2013 prize are now open!

 

 

the Sydney Poetry Prize

A dangerous excitement is building contagiously across the inner city tonight as the announcement of the inaugural winner of the Sydney Poetry Prize draws near.

The winner will be announced during the course of tonight’s poetry reading event at Sappho Books in Glebe Point Road, one of the regular series of poetry events organised at that venue by Toby Fitch

This latest landmark in the ever-accumulating series of awards for poetry in Australia and round the world is the brainchild of Adrian Wiggins, Redfern-based poet and proprietor of the Sydney Poetry website cum virtual meeting place for local poets, poetasters and poetry addicts.   The site boasts 586 members, including a raft of well-known names, and an everflowing stream of posts and poems of all shades of quality and style.

The 2012 Sydney Poetry Prize will be awarded to the best poem posted to the Sydney Poetry website in the last 12 months, as judged by Kate Middleton, who enjoys the grand title of official Sydney City Poet.

Pitt Street Poetry is (as usual) humble yet proud to be the principal sponsor of the Sydney Poetry Prize.   The more so as our first ever publication is still a few tantalising weeks away.

See you there tonight!

 

 

 

Tim Cumming – filmpoems

One of our recent tweets offered a link to an article in the Huffington post by UK poet Tim Cumming on the nexus between poetry and film.  Imagine our pleasure and surprise when none other than Tim himself got in touch on New Year’s Day, to thank us for the link and offer the opportunity to host two of his recent filmpoems, Foreign News and Flowers.

Check them out over at our Videmus page.  Thanks Tim, and a very happy new year to you too – and to all our readers.