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Thanks to everyone who submitted poems to Blue Diode Press over the last fortnight. The submission window for the 2020 list is now closed and I’m reading and reflecting. 2020 looks like it will be an exciting year for the press though!
I am very pleased to announce that we will be publishing two brilliant first collections in October 2019: Split by Juana Adcock and Bitten Hair by Tessa Berring. They are both singular writers. Juana, a Mexican/Scottish bilingual poet, interrogates myth, cultural identity and language with precision, humour and formal ingenuity. Tessa mines darkness with disarming lightness of touch. Like an Eastern European absurdist, with wit, compassion and a subversive eye, she animates our deepest emotions.
There will be launches and other readings. I’ll also keep you up to date with cover images, what some very fine poets have to say about these collections, and the exact publication date.
I’m under no illusions. Poetry is not an easy sell. The fact that Rupi Kaur can sell half a million books has no bearing on the experience of most poets. But I do want to publish collections of real quality and I have ambitions of Blue Diode staying around for a while and continuing to do that. To do it, of course, the press will need to publish books people want to read. I do have a beleaguered faith that – with these two books – you may not realise yet that you simply need to read them, but you will do once you’ve started reading them! I’m not studying the market. It’s important for me to believe it’s there though.