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Wednesday, May 12, 2010

2010 Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets shortlist

The British Library has announced the shortlist for the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets in partnership with the Poetry Book Society and with the generous support of the Michael Marks Charitable Trust. In their second year, the Awards celebrate the importance of the pamphlet form in introducing new poetry to readers in the internet age. Poetry pamphlet shortlist:

* The Terrors, Tom Chivers (Nine Arches Press). Eighteenth century hangman narratives... conducted by email.
* The Titanic Café closes its doors and hits the rocks, David Hart (Nine Arches Press). An elegy to a café in Birmingham that no longer exists, this single poem is collage, song, and paean in one.
* Advice on Wearing Animal Prints, Selima Hill (Flarestack Poets). A disconcerting tragicomedy told across the letters of the alphabet - this story follows the life of its idiosyncratic heroine Agatha.
* Devorgilla's Bridge, Hugh McMillan (Roncadora Press). This single fold-out poem, beautifully complemented by a linocut by Hugh Bryden, is devoted to what is said to be Scotland's oldest bridge: 'an astronaut in stone'.
* The Reluctant Vegetarian, Richard Moorhead (Oystercatcher Press). This pamphlet is a wry and sensual cross between a medieval herbal, a farmer's calendar and an English dictionary.
* ballast: a remix, Nii Ayikwei Parkes (tall-lighthouse). A breathtaking account of slavery told through near sci-fi effects: imagine the slave trade had operated through hot air balloons rather than ships.

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