This Is Not Your Final Form

Poems about Birmingham

Emma Dai'an Wright, Richard O'Brien

• Publisher: The Emma Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781910139608
• eBook ISBN: 9781910139752
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

This Is Not Your Final Form showcases the best of Birmingham: a rich, varied and vibrant city capable of inspiring a range of contemporary poetic responses. This anthology, bringing together entries from the inaugural Verve Poetry Festival Competition, depicts a second city which is no longer content to play second fiddle. Poets take on the area's musical past, its complex industrial history, its unique blend of architectural styles and the experiences of its many immigrant communities. Writers celebrate the lives of significant figures, from Matthew Boulton to Benjamin Zephaniah, and ordinary Brummies alike. Ranging from spoken word-inspired pieces to more traditional styles, much of the work collected here channels the energy and the political anger that runs like a seam through centuries of Birmingham history. Taken together, This Is Not Your Final Form is a tough, unsentimental love letter to the Midlands metropolis, which finds beauty in concrete and unity in contradiction.

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In an island kingdom, Don Armando dreams of a dragon-slaying adventure like heroes used to perform. And in a laboratory in a gleaming city, scientist Haplo Nous tinkers towards an atom bomb.

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HOMESICKNESS AND EXILE
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RRP £10 / ISBN 978-1-910139-02-8

How does it feel to be a foreigner? Can you choose where you call home? Homesickness and Exile is a collection of poems about the fundamental human need to belong to a place.

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MALKIN, by Camille Ralphs

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Malkin brims and bubbles with the voices of those accused in the Pendle Witch Trials of 1612. Thirteen men and women – speaking across the centuries via Ralphs’ heady use of free spelling – plead, boast and confess, immersing the reader in this charged and dangerous time in history.

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SLOW THINGS: POEMS ABOUT SLOW THINGS

Edited by Rachel Piercey and Emma Wright

RRP £10 / ISBN 978-1-910139-16-5

Slow walks, slow thoughts and slow afternoons in the sun provide inspiration for the poets in Slow Things, an anthology which celebrates taking life at a leisurely pace and existing in the present.

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GOOSE FAIR NIGHT, by Kathy Pimlott

With an introduction by Clare Pollard

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A generous, jelli...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Other books from the Emma Press
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• GREGORY LEADBETTER
• RISHI DASTIDAR
• CHERYL PEARSON
• MARGARET ADKINS
• BERNADETTE LYNCH
• DAVID CLARKE
• MAYA STOKES (AGED 14)
• BERNARD DAVIS
• NATALIE BURDETT
• SHAUN HAND
• JOHN MCGHEE
• Notes on the VERVE competition winners
• SUSANNAH DICKEY (FIRST PRIZE)
• JENNA CLAKE (SECOND PRIZE)
• GILL LEARNER (THIRD PRIZE)
• TESSA FOLEY (FOURTH PRIZE)
• ALI-NOOR SALAM (AGED 8)
• ROB WALTON
• LOUISE VALE
• JILL MUNRO
• KIBRIYA MEHRBAN
• NICK KNIBB
• RACHAEL NICHOLAS
• HELEN REHMAN
• KEITH CHANDLER
• NELLIE COLE
• NUSAYBA NABEEL (AGED 10)
• CHARLOTTE WETTON
• ROZ GODDARD
• HEATHER FRECKLETON
• JENNIFER EDWARDS
• CAROLE BROMLEY
• REZA ARABPOUR
• VICTORIA GATEHOUSE
• About the Poets
• About the Editors
• The Emma Press
• Also From The Emma Press