Will post about this again nearer the time with reader bios but make sure you don’t miss out on six stunning if p then q poets celebrating the run of the press, and fix this date firm. For a little post about those ten years click HERE
In April 2018 if p then q will have been publishing for ten years. In addition to a special birthday celebration reading (watch this space) it seems apt to highlight some key publications, in case you’ve missed out. Just click on the links that follow to add the title to your library
Between 2008-9 if p then q magazine ran for four issues. The first two were loose-bound and housed in envelopes with gifts – pens, postcards and CDs. Issue three came out as a set of posters, specially commissioned by The Text Festival, and included posters by P. Inman, Craig Dworkin and Anne Charnock. The final issue was a pastiche of a coffee table magazine featuring Caroline Bergvall on the front cover. Issue three is still in print and available HERE.
The first if p then q perfect bound collection, 2008, was Tom Jenks’ A Priori which includes his much-lauded poem 99 Names for Small Dogs. Many other perfect bound collections have met critical acclaim. Holly Pester’s Hoofs and Chrissy Williams’ Epigraphs have both been featured on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, Peter Jaeger’s A Field Guide to Lost Things was long-listed for The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize and many other titles have received multiple and positive reviews. Here they are: Lucy Harvest-Clarke’s exhilarating Silveronda, Tim Atkins’ minimal sonnet sequence 1000 Sonnets, David Berridge’s search for the ‘thing’ in Bring the Thing, Derek Henderson’s poignant, systematic erasure of Ted Berrigan’s The Sonnet titled Thus &, Stephen Emmerson’s almost blank page Family Portraits, Geof Huth’s collected one word poems ntst, Tom Jenks’ follow ups to A Priori – the almost sonnet sequence * and the barmy Items, seekers of lice’s text version of Encyclops., Philip Terry’s Advanced Immorality – including his rewrites of Queneau – & Nathan Walker’s tome of web generated one-liners Action Score Generator.
In 2014 if p then q reached new heights by publishing the collected works of the great P. Inman, Written 1976-2013. This work not only collects his work in an inexpensive format but allows his work to been seen as something which both changes and, paradoxically, remains consistently constant, as Craig Dworkin points out in his lengthy and fascinating introduction.
In amongst all these titles there was still time to publish obscurities, some sold out – Michael Basinski’s Dog Music postcard, Nick-e Melville’s leaflet Junk Mail, as well as the still in print set of trump cards What’s the Best? by Joy as Tiresome Vandalism and Stephen Emmerson’s automatic poetry templates – Poetry Wholes.
2015 saw the first publication of a critical work – derek beaulieu’s captivating essays on concrete and conceptual poetry The Unbearable Contact with Poets, which also offered readers the chance to buy as a print bound copy or obtain as a pdf.
This year if p then q has pushed forwards with a new house front cover design and two new titles – Tim Allen’s re-imagining of The Columbia Granger Index to Poetry called Under the Cliff Like and Simon Taylor’s conceptual photo project of imaginary university lecturers Prospectus.
Look out for new titles in the near future from Peter Jaeger, Tom Jenks, Emma Cocker and others.
If you’ve missed any of these titles you should really check ‘em out.
Steve Spence gives the thumbs up to Under The Cliff Like in his review at Litter magazine.
These are poems to dip into, to read through at a gallop and then have another look later. They will entertain, entrance and cause great puzzlement if you attempt to read for meaning too literally.
LINK to read more
LINK to purchase
A video of Peter Jaeger performing some of his epic Midamble which will be coming out in early 2018 from if p then q.
if p then q is back after a little break and with a new cover design. Tim Allen’s Under The Cliff Like is first up and is available at 30% discount until the end of December online.
196 pages
£8.00 (£5.60 with discount via the link below)
About the book
‘Under The Cliff Like’ is constructed from the ‘Title And First Line Index’ in the 1962 edition of ‘Granger’s Index To Poetry’ (Columbia University Press. U.S.A.) which was found in a junk shop. It was written in 1996. In alphabetical order all entries beginning with ‘Like’ are juxtaposed with the equivalent number of entries beginning with ‘Under’. There are no alterations other than elimination of commas and the capital letter of the juxtaposed line plus the insertion of full stops at the end of each pairing.
About the author
Tim Allen Edited the magazine Terrible Work and ran the Poetry Exchange and Language Club events in Plymouth. Now lives near Preston. Publications
include Settings (Shearsman 2008), Anabranch with Slug – a robotic pastoral in honor of Raymond Roussel (Knives Forks & Spoons 2011), incidental harvest (Oystercatcher 2011) and The Voice Thrower (Shearsman 2012), a single long poem of 333 quatrains described by Ian Seed as ‘the fragmented bildungsroman of a generation who have grown up in a postmodern world’. Also co-edited a book of interviews with British poets, Don’t Start Me Talking (Salt 2006).His poetry, though situated in the post-avant, innovative and radical streams, has its roots in symbolist euphony and surrealism.
SAMPLE – Under the cliff like sample
published 16th September 2017
published 16th September 2017
