The Emma Press launches call for poems about Britain
The Emma Press has launched a call for poems about rituals and customs in Britain, for an anthology publishing in October 2018. Editors Richard O’Brien and Emma Wright hope the book will ‘build up a portrait of the country by exploring what its inhabitants commemorate’. The book’s theme is inspired by Ovid’s Fasti.
The anthology will be edited by Richard O’Brien and Emma Wright, who recently edited This Is Not Your Final Form: Poems about Birmingham together.
Emma Wright said: ‘This will be a political book. As the daughter of a refugee, and also just as a human being, I’m deeply disturbed by current discourse about Britishness and how it seems impossible to separate talk of national identity and pride from talk of exclusion and isolation. In this book, we want to examine Britain at a grass-roots level: what do its inhabitants care about? What do they remember and celebrate?’
The call for submissions asks for ‘poems about customs, rituals, festivals, holidays, celebrations and regular events that take place in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, on a micro level (what one person or one family might do) as well as on a larger scale.’
The deadline for submissions is 26th March 2017; guidelines can be found on the Submissions page.
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About the Emma Press Ovid
This anthology will be the fourth in the Emma Press Ovid series, which began in 2014. Each book in the series takes its inspiration from a work by the Roman poet.
- A Poetic Primer for Love and Seduction (Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris)
- Homesickness and Exile (Tristia)
- Urban Myths and Legends (Metamorphoses)
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About the editors
Richard O’Brien’s pamphlets include The Emmores (Emma Press, 2014) and A Bloody Mess (Valley Press, 2015). He co-edited This Is Not Your Final Form: Poems about Birmingham (Emma Press, 2017) and his work has featured in Oxford Poetry, Poetry London, and The Salt Book of Younger Poets. He also writes for children: his first children’s play – an adaptation of The Selfish Giant – was produced at the Arcola Theatre in December 2016. He is working on a Midlands3Cities-funded PhD on Shakespeare and verse drama at the University of Birmingham. [Photo: John Canfield]
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Emma Wright worked in ebook production at Orion Publishing Group before leaving to found the Emma Press in 2012, with the support of the Prince’s Trust Explore Enterprise programme. She has since published 33 poetry books, including themed poetry anthologies and single-author pamphlets. In 2015 she was awarded a grant from Arts Council England to run Myths and Monsters, a poetry tour for children, and in 2016 the Emma Press won the Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlet Publishers. She lives in Birmingham. [Photo: Tony Grant]
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