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On
Saturday afternoon at the Swedenborg Hall a celebration was held for Tony Frazer’s
sixty-fourth birthday. At least this was the ostensible occasion but what it
really represented was a unanimous vote of thanks to Tony for his work as a
publisher over the years. I can’t imagine that many publishers would attract
such a crowd of well-wishing authors. It says a lot about Tony that he could do
this. My own experience with Shearsman Press began when Gael Turnbull sent a
long poem of mine to the Shearsman magazine (at that time a smaller stapled
affair). Tony published it though it took up some two-thirds of the issue. I
discovered on Shearsman’s website that Tony had recommended my books (along
with those of so many others) and had suggested that it would be good to see The Ash Range back in print. In 2005 he
took up the project, producing at the same time a book of selected poems, Compared To What. Picador Australia had
done an excellent job on the first edition of The Ash Range. There was one typo that I could trace. Tony’s
Shearsman volume has no errors. Care is not a word that is always associated
with publishers. The whole Shearsman corpus exhibits it. Above is Tony (right) with one of the editors of the marvellous online festschrift, Martin Anderson.
Now that April's Here
It's raining on the brussels sprouts.
The fire is smoking in the grate.
Macmillan says he has no doubts.
Will Oxford beat the Cambridge eight?
Some bright intervals tomorrow.
Sixpence on a football pool.
Seven percent if you want to borrow.
Charles is settling down at school.
Put the Great back in Great Britain.
Write a letter to The Times.
Lots of fun with Billy Butlin.
It's a poem if it rhymes.
GT, 1957
*
After Gael Turnbull
The gales are battering the trees.
The broadband signal's breaking up.
Cam says no to refugees.
Will Andy win the Davis Cup?
There'll be flooding on the levels.
Buy a ticket, scratch and see.
The SNP are bloody devils.
Labour's under Jeremy.
Scotland's fallen off the map.
The First Great Western's running late.
The EU is a load of crap.
It's Faber, so it must be great.
LD, 2015
Pete Spence had a stroke recently. But he's back on the ball having just produced a new magazine, Soluble Edge: cover by Jeremy Balius, artwork by Henry Denander, poems by Pete himself plus Yuko Otomo, Steve Dalachinsky, Jim Leftwich, Francesca Jurate Sasnaitis, Mark Young, Barbara Henning, Mitch Highfill, Chris Barron, Vincent Katz, Sheila Murphy, Matvei Yankelevich, Louis Armand, D J Huppatz, Anna Couani, Cam Lowe, Bill Berkson, Toby Fitch, Elizabeth Gertsakis and Ariel Riveros Pavez. Soluble Edge is to be an annual project, available from the editor.
