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The Papers’ 106th edition lands!

The autumn issue of The Frogmore Papers has been published and dispatched. In addition to poetry from familiar names such as Vuyelwa Carlin, D A Prince and Myra Schneider, number 106 features new prose from Matthew Allen, Benjamin George Coles and Candyce Lange and all ten poems shortlisted for this year’s Frogmore Prize adjudicated by John Greening, including Sharon Black’s winning poem ‘Pont des Arts’ and poems by runners-up Michael Greavy and Jonathan Edwards.

Cover by visual artist and poet John Kay

This issue’s archive poem is by John Whitworth (1945 – 2019), whose ‘The Householder’s Tale’ was originally published in the Papers’ 65th edition in 2005. Copies of 106 are available post-free from The Frogmore Press for £5.00. Subscriptions remain £10.00 for one year, £15.00 for two.

Here is Sharon Black’s Frogmore Prize winning poem:

PONT DES ARTS

I miss the weight, the chink and slide
of steel through steel, the doting voices

I do – forever –
silence as a key rotates

a shank snaps open, a lock clicks shut
a tiny key’s tossed in the Seine.

Love is not beyond endurance.
Brass or steel, engraved or plastic-coated

I strained and warped under the bulky
chains of hearts and names –

barnacles on a hull. Doesn’t any union
hide an inch of metal grille

through which a river could once be spotted
bearing yachts and bâteaux-mouches

slipping eternally
under beams and ornate arches?

When they came with saws, with clippers,
I shivered as they jemmied off

one million cadences d’amour:
some ended up in municipal trucks,

others scattered like confetti, took
their stories to the riverbed,

to the flimsy keys and solid hope
that locked them.

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The Frogmore Papers are 105 issues old!

March sees the publication of the 105th issue of The Frogmore Papers. With a stunning cover by Brighton-born artist Lydia McDonnell, 105 is a truly international edition, with contributions from Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Romania, the UK and USA. Copies are available at £5.00 (post free) from: The Frogmore Press, 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes BN7 1PJ.

Cover art of The Frogmore Papers No. 105, by Lydia McDonnell

Looking ahead, number 106 will be published in September and will feature all the poems shortlisted for the 39th Frogmore Poetry Prize, adjudicated by the poet John Greening. John has published more than twenty collections of poetry, most recently From the East: Six Huntingdonshire Codices, which was published by Renard Press last year. He has previously been awarded the Alexandria International Poetry Prize, the Bridport Prize and the TLS Centenary Prize. The deadline for entries to the Frogmore Prize is 31 May and full details can be found at: www.frogmorepress.co.uk

The winner will receive the sum of 250 guineas (£262.50) and a two-year subscription to The Frogmore Papers.

Here is a taster from The Frogmore Papers 105:

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The Papers are 104!

The 104th edition of The Frogmore Papers has now been published and is available from The Frogmore Press (still only £5.00, post free). The issue includes all ten poems shortlisted for this year’s Frogmore Poetry Prize, which was adjudicated by Graham Mort, including the winning poem by Kathy Miles (see below), alongside new poetry from the likes of Sharon Black, Maggie Butt, Robert Hamberger, Maitreyabandhu, Christine McNeill, Jackie Wills and Lynne Wycherley (to name but a few), prose from H Alder, Robert Charles and Mark Levy, and the usual clutch of reviews of recent publications from the world of poetry.

The Frogmore Papers No. 104, cover designed by Eva Bodinet

German artist Eva Bodinet has created another memorable cover for the issue. Julia Casterton (1952 – 2007) is the writer featured in the ‘From the Archive’ section, and our 104th edition also includes what may prove to be one of the last poems by the Irish poet Fred Johnston, a frequent contributor to the Papers, who very sadly died unexpectedly earlier this month.

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38th Frogmore Prize heads west to Wales

Kathy Miles from Aberaeron, Ceredigion has been awarded the 38th annual Frogmore Poetry Prize by adjudicator Graham Mort for her poem ‘After a Termination on Medical Grounds’.

Born in Liverpool, Kathy has lived in Wales since 1972. She worked for many years at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, where she also completed an MA in Creative Writing. Her fourth collection of poetry, Bone House, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2020, and her latest collection, Vanishing Point, was published earlier this year by Palewell Press. Commenting on the process of adjudicating the Prize, Graham Mort said: ‘I avoided poems that explained themselves, trying to choose those that yielded up further meanings or significance, that burned brightest in my own consciousness, remaining irreducible. I wanted to acknowledge adventure in theme, form and language, to find transformative endings that left my own visions active in the lingering aura of the poem.’

The Frogmore Papers 104. Cover art by Eva Bodinet

First runner-up was Pamela Job from Wivenhoe, Essex, with her poem ‘Nikolai Astrup shows a rare visitor around his village’, inspired by an exhibition of the work of Norwegian artist Nikolai Astrup at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Second runner-up was Ben Verinder from Tring, Hertfordshire, with his poem ‘The Marfa Lights’. His poem ‘Dilapidations’ also reached the shortlist of ten. Other shortlisted poets were Jane Davidson, Tim Dwyer, Kate Horsley, Sarah Salway, Thea Smiley and Vivienne Tregenza.

Their poems will all be published in the September edition of The Frogmore Papers, available from The Frogmore Press for only £5.00, including post & packing.

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The Papers’ 103rd edition in their 41st year

Cover art by Arusyak Pivazyan, inspired Paul Truan’s poem ‘Tones’

The Frogmore Papers’ 103rd edition is published this month. It’s another international number, featuring a striking cover by Armenian artist Arusyak Pivazyan (inspired by a poem from Cornish poet Paul Truan), translations of Georges Brassens by Michael Swan and the Belgian poet Marc Tritsmans by John Irons, poems by Peter Bakowski (Australia) and Christine Hennemann (Ireland) and a short story by Stephen Silvester (Canada). Closer to home, there is also work by Mike Barlow, Vuyelwa Carlin, John Greening, Stuart Henson, Myra Schneider, Paul Stephenson and a host of others. ‘From the Archive’ features a 1997 poem by Tobias Hill, who, sadly, died last year. Several of his early poems appeared in the Papers, and Tobias was awarded the Frogmore Prize in 1995 by Linda France for his poem ‘Flora and the Admiral’.

The Frogmore Papers are available post-free (£5.00) from The Frogmore Press or from Skylark, the independent bookshop in the Needlemakers, Lewes. Subscription rates to the Papers have remained at £10.00 for one year, £15.00 for two years since 2010.

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Into autumn with Frogmore Papers No.102

September 2023 sees the publication of The Frogmore Papers’ 102nd edition. Ukrainian artist Marysya Rudska has created a stunning cover for the issue, inspired by Fred Johnson’s poem ‘Language’.

LANGUAGE

A wicker chair gone a hundred years into
mauve cold. In the old wood,

mice shiver like censers
swinging. The man there watches

a long stuck clock of road.
Folds arthritic hands and thinks

of nothing, really—only,
it’s snowing. That is to say,

the sun is a bone.

Thinks, now there’s something:

prints in the white clean. A red doe
limping, speaking.

Other contributors include poets John Freeman, Christine McNeill, John Mole and Graham Mort and Armenian artist Arusyak Pivazyan. All ten poems shortlisted for this year’s Frogmore Prize by Helena Nelson are published, including Lynda Plater’s winning poem and those by runners-up Alison Binney and Christoper Horton. The issue also includes new work by previous Prize winners Sharon Black, Margaret Wilmot and Howard Wright, and, in the ‘From the Archive’ section, a poem by Andrew Waterhouse, first published in number 46 of the Papers in 1995.

Copies are available for £5.00 (post and packing free) from The Frogmore Press, 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1PJ. Subscriptions remain at £10.00 for one year, £15.00 for two years. Email frogmorepress@gmail.com for details of how to pay by bank transfer or PayPal.

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Frogmore begins a new century

Artwork by Eva Bodinet

The 101st edition of The Frogmore Papers (spring 2023) has been published and is now available from The Frogmore Press (£5.00, post free) or for Lewes residents from Skylark bookshop in the Needlemakers. With a distinctive cover by Paris-based artist Eva Bodinet, number 101 is another truly international edition, containing poetry from Ireland, the Philippines, the USA and most corners of the UK, prose from France and the USA and artwork by Ukrainian artist Marysya Rudska, as well as the usual reviews of recent poetry publications. Here’s a poem by Chicago-based poet Donna Pucciani, who makes a welcome return to the Papers with this issue.

Donna Pucciani

DIFFERENCE

It’s not the loss of morning light,
a gradual dimming done by autumn’s brush,
keeping the pink sky half-night
even at seven.

It’s the loss of birdsong.
I remember, as though it were just
yesterday, the sharp echoes
bouncing off bare April branches,
promising green and morning music
for the better half of the year,
when picking up the morning paper
becomes a bright cantata.

Now, silence is a burden
that gets heavier through the day,
then drags its leaden feet
through the weeks ahead, until
the deepening snow absorbs it
in the mummified corpse of winter.

I try to appreciate the difference
between music and the still breath
of nothingness at dawn,
which is its own music.
Absence is the fulness of zero,
when the mouths of a thousand flowers
leave behind only the memory of fragrance.

The architecture of longing
hangs in the early morning air,
suspended in space,
happy in its own emptiness,
for desire knows no death.

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Lewes launch for the 100th Papers and Clare Best’s End of Season

28th September saw the launch of the 100th edition of The Frogmore Papers alongside Clare Best’s new bilingual Frogmore publication End of Season (Fine di Stagione) at the Elephant and Castle in Lewes.

From left: André Evans (co-founder of The Frogmore Press), Neil Gower (with original artwork for Frogmore Papers 100), Jeremy Page (holding first issue of The Frogmore Papers from 1983), Clare Best with her collection End of Season, Alexandra Loske (Managing Editor, with a copy of Frogmore’s 2019 anthology Pale Fire: New Writing on the Moon)

Frogmore Press Managing Editor Alexandra Loske welcomed a near capacity audience before handing over to Clare Best, who spoke about the background to her new work before reading a selection of the poems, which were delivered in both English and Italian. Frogmore Papers editor Jeremy Page then introduced the second part of the evening, with Frogmore co-founder André Evans reading his account of the Papers’ origins at the legendary Folkestone tea-rooms.

This was followed by readings from some of the more local contributors to the 100th edition: Stephen Bone (Newhaven), Neil Gower (Lewes/Berlin), Robin Houghton (Eastbourne), Wendy Klein (Lindfield), John O’Donoghue (Brighton), Peter Stewart (Lewes), Janet Sutherland (Lewes) and Margaret Wilmot (Selmeston).

This special issue of The Frogmore Papers is available post-free from The Frogmore Press, price £10.00. Clare Best’s End of Season is £12.00. Payment by cheque payable to The Frogmore Press, at 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes BN7 1PJ, or email frogmorepress@gmail.com for details of how to pay by BACS or PayPal.

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Frogmore hits 100 not out

The Frogmore Papers have published their 100th edition in their fortieth year. Number one hundred includes poems by Simon Armitage, Dean Atta, Mike Barlow, John Freeman, Christine McNeill, Myra Schneider, Catherine Smith, Janet Sutherland and fifty-two other outstanding poets, including those shortlisted for this years’ 36th Frogmore Poetry Prize, which was won by County Antrim poet Laura Jenner. There is short fiction from D S Curran, Catherine Kelley, Denise McSheehy and Mike Lewis-Beck, artwork from Lydia McDonnell, and a look back to the Papers’ origins from Frogmore co-founder André Evans.

Neil Gower, who is also a contributor, has created stunning cover art for this celebratory issue.

Frogmore Papers No 100, with cover art by Neil Gower

And as part of their mission to ensure the enduring appreciation of the work of Frogmore poets who are no longer with us, this special edition of the Papers features an extended ‘from the archive’ section showcasing the work of Elizabeth Bartlett, Ruth Bidgood, James Brockway, Linda Chase, Sam Gardiner, Geoffrey Holloway, Judith Kazantzis, Matthew Mead, Peter Russell and Carole Satyamurti.

The Frogmore Papers number 100 will be launched at the Elephant & Castle, White Hill, Lewes on 28 September, alongside Clare Best’s new bilingual Frogmore publication End of Season. Doors 7.00 pm, readings from 7.30. All welcome.

This special issue is available post-free from The Frogmore Press, price £10.00. Payment by cheque payable to The Frogmore Press, at 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes BN7 1PJ, or email frogmorepress@gmail.com for details of how to pay by BACS or PayPal.

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Landmark 99th issue of The Frogmore Papers published

The spring edition of the Papers is now available. Once again they contain work by writers from across the world as well as from most corners of the UK. There is poetry from England, France, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, the USA and Wales, and prose from Germany, South Africa and Wales.

Julian Gower, a multidisciplinary Graphic Artist, who works in a variety of media and styles, has created a striking cover inspired by the poetry of Julian Cason and Judith Wozniak, while Lydia McDonnell’s artwork is inspired by a poem from Tim Relf.

As ever, the Papers are available post-free (for £5.00) from The Frogmore Press, 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1PJ. Or why not subscribe and secure your copy of the celebratory 100th number, which will be published in September? A two-year subscription is still only £15.00. Payment can be made by cheque to ‘The Frogmore Press’ or email frogmorepress@gmail.com for details of how to pay by BACS or PayPal.