Simon Marsh’s work originally appeared in Bar Magenta, published by The Many Press in 1988. He lives in Milan where he teaches and plays music. His friend and fellow-poet Peter Hughes writes, ‘Thanet high-water marks, Cambridge exploratory drillings and the varied acoustics of Milan jazz all leave their traces in Simon Marsh’s expansive and detailed poetry...’

‘There is a kind of optimism in the writing, inseperable from its cadences; an optimism which may briefly pause in these pages, may even sit down, but probably won’t take off its coat… The fact is that Wheale’s is a lyricism which includes much more of the world than we have come to expect from most mainstream British poetry.’ So wrote the poet Peter Hughes, when reviewing previous publication of a group of the poems collected here. Born in 1950, Nigel Wheale has been widely published in magazines and in pamphlet form (two previous Many Press publications are listed elsewhere in the catalogue); ‘Phrasing the Light’ is his first full-length collection. Nigel Wheale has contributed two chapters to ‘Poets on Writing: Great Britain 1970-1991’, edited by Denise Riley (Macmillan 1992). He edited ‘Shakespeare in the Changing Curriculum’ with Lesley Aers (Routledge 1991), and his ‘The Postmodern Arts? An Introduction’ is published by Routledge in 1995.

Poet and sinologist ­ he is the founder of Wellsweep, a press specialising in Chinese literature and society ­ John Cayley has a longstanding interest in computers. Every pamphlet in this limited edition is unique. The two ‘given texts’, “Critical Theory” and “Under It All 2” are common to the whole run, but each book contains also its own computer-generated “hologographic” transformations of the bases… the results fascinate… work whose significance may soon appear large indeed. Peter Manson, Object Permanence.

The poets performing each contributed one poem; they are, in order of appearance, Tom Raworth, Vuyelwa Carlin, John Welch, Randolph Healy, Elaine Randell, Tom Leonard, Kevin Coyne, Jim Burns, Bill Griffiths and P.C. Fencott, John Hall, Barry MacSweeney, Sorley Maclean, Sean Rafferty. Note: In the event Randolph Healy was unable to read and was replaced by Aaron Williamson.

An Italian poet and translator who writes his own poetry in both languages; the energy of the writing is notable, revealing the depth of his attachment to the family village of Mompeo in the Sabine Hills near Rome. Images of regeneration accumulate as the sequence proceeds, to conclude in the mysterious ‘Lullaby’.

A British-based poet who writes in Punjabi. Acuteness of social perception combines at times with ironic humour; at times there is a full-blooded lyricism. Now settled in the UK, Chandan is representative of the South Asian poets living here and writing in a variety of Asian languages; little of this work, which adds a new dimension to British poetry, has so far appeared in translation.

This collection represented a return to publication for a widely published poet after a gap of some years; previous collections have appeared from, among others, Hutchinson, Fulcrum, Turret, Trigram, Writers’ Forum and Slow Dancer. MacSweeney is one of those poets whose work becomes richer and more coherent the more of it you read…These are long line poems of the best kind, meaning that such lines don’t serve to cushion the reader’s disappointment at not finding prose; here the contrast of heavy stresses to slow the ear and long sweeps of line for the eye means that you can actually feel your eyes moving across the page, a rare experience and well worth the admission. Peter Manson, Object Permanence. If you like language that is throat-deep with images, then ‘Hellhound Memos’ will appeal to you. Alex Kirke, Terrible Work.

An Indian poet writing in English, Sudeep Sen’s first full length collection, ‘The Lunar Visitations’ (White Swan 1990) was published in New York where he was then living. He was later poet-in-residence at the Scottish Arts Council’s Poetry Library; he now divides his time between London and Delhi. It is delightful to pick up a poet so interested in the world around him for its own sake… At 29 he’s probably as good as Louis MacNeice was at the same age, and he often reminds me of MacNeice, of ‘the drunkenness of things being various’. Angus Calder, The Scotsman Weekend. Its phenomenal quality resides not only in its own forms but in its implicit insistence upon a meeting of the cosmopolitan and the international with the local and loyal, a meeting of the spiritual and the densely materialistic, a meeting of the English language and the act of writing out of the absence of classified idiom. It is a meeting of East and West that may have been foreshadowed but could not have been foretold. Alan Riach, Lines Review.

Thirty-two poems ­ one for each station of the Rome Metro ­ that provide a distinctively contemporary and elliptical view of the Eternal City. Tom Phillips wrote of his contribution to Bar Magenta, also published by The Many Press, ‘By constantly turning things on their heads with mercurial facility, Hughes creates an atmostphere of instability… from which fortuitous harmonies can be retrieved’ ­ a comment which applies equally well to the method employed in The Metro Poems. Having somehow missed Peter Hughes’s work… it was a treat to read ‘The Metro Poems’. Michael Blackburn, The North.

A journalist whose writing on Africa has appeared in various newspapers and journals, Harding’s widely acclaimed book on conflicts in Africa ‘Small Wars; Small Mercies’ was published in 1993 by Viking. This sequence takes its title from three works by the cubist painter Juan Gris. ‘Is it right to associate the paintings and collages of Juan Gris with hotels?’ enquires the author’s note. ‘At first sight they suggest a vagrancy not of persons but of forms and objects…’ With measured and delicate precision Harding examines the power of absence… the simplicity of the language and the ease of its movement belie subtleties beneath… Michael Blackburn, The North.

Giorgio Verecchia died of cancer while this collection was in preparation. Born in 1939, he came to England from Turin in 1960. Tom Lowenstein writes, ‘These short, gnomic poems encapsulate moments of a confident and serene vision. “The difference beween life and death”, he said recently, “is like choosing ­ or nodding ­ between two flavours of ice-cream.” In May 1991 he had written: “Time to nod it back from the frantic asteroids of space / caves of my brain / the making of it: layer by layer… door by door ­ right guess by right guess”.

Nicholas Lafitte died tragically in 1970. His work remained largely unpublished in his lifetime; this full-length collection provides a generous selection of his work. ‘Poet of light, of the sea remembered behind clouds, where all water is one divine plasma imbued with light, Nicholas Lafitte, although at times deranged, could speak of madness with peculiar clarity’ writes Anthony Howell in his introduction. Howell has also provided brief notes to the poems, and there is a detailed ‘life record’ by the poet’s father. Many (of his poems) were written under the shadow of the Mental Hospital and his father’s brief, dignified account of it makes heartbreaking reading. Nicholas Lafitte certainly shows a rare sensitivity and strong, brooding intelligence… I am glad this poignant collection was published. Desmond Egan, The Tablet.

A sequence that chronicles the struggle between the Kanaks ­ indigenous inhabitants of the French overseas territory of New Caledonia ­ and the French settlers; the political commitment of the poetry is suffused with lyrical urgency and the islands themselves are a powerful presence, vividly evoked. A worthy and enlightening collection. Chapman. …this excellent new book…He uses exotic language to capture a mood of brilliant sky and wild places, contrasting them dramatically with the grimness of a struggle for independence. Exile.

This is a collection that combines a continuing commitment to vigorous experimentation with writing that is rigorously disciplined, even when most confessional ­ as one would expect from the translator of Horace and Propertius (Shepherd’s versions of these are both published in the Penguin Classics series.) There is great honesty with regard to private passion in this book… Outposts. He has the courage to describe the pain of strained relationships in a caustic language, where the superior rudeness of the speaker continually undermines his posture…. however it is mainly his precision I admire: his ability to monitor the windings of a quarrel with unerring accuracy without eschewing his obligation to rhythm and a diction of surprise. Anthony Howell, Agenda.

Poems written since the author’s two full-length collections ‘Out Walking’ (Anvil 1984) and ‘Blood and Dreams’ (Reality Street 1992). ‘John Welch has been a signiicant figure since the early seventies’, wrote James Keery, reviewing these two collections in PN Review. ‘For my money, “Out Walking” is the finest volume Anvil have produced.’

Martha Kapos teaches at Chelsea School of Art and her art criticism has appeared in Artscribe, Art Monthly and Screen. She has compiled and edited major works on the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists and has written catalogues to a number of important exhibitions, notably of paintings by Ken Kiff and John Maclean. Originally a painter, she started to write poetry in the eighties, and this was her first collection.

Nigel Wheale wrote ‘The collectedness of her work and life is played against a collage of statements by the artist. There can be no invasive possession of the biography, but a standing off by the poems as a means of speaking the visual self-possession to be found in Gwen John’s extraordinary portraits and still-life studies.’ A tape-slide piece incorporating this sequence was performed at various venues, including the Tate Gallery and the Barbican Art Gallery, at the time of the major retrospective of Gwen John’s work in 1985.

A collection combining the work of two poets both at the time resident in Italy, and who often met in Milan at the Bar Magenta of the title. At the end of the day the scoreline is high and pretty even. It’s a scorcher of a book… The richly textured language, the ­ I have to say it ­ deliquescent rhythms, the sense of place and mood captured in these poems, makes it the most exciting find for me of 1988. I mean it… I hope we’ll hear a lot more of these two. Peter Sansom, Orbis.

A major collection by a poet and ethnographer whose poetic retelling of the Inuit whale hunt was recently published by Bloomsbury to wide critical acclaim. That material finds a place in ‘Filibustering in Samsara’, notably in the long opening sequence ‘La Tempesta’s X-Ray’, a meditation on change, identity and the context-loss implicit in western experience. The later poems develop themes arising from the poet’s ethnographic work in Alaska and Pali Buddhist studies. The poet and critic Christopher Middleton wrote: ‘I find ‘La Tempesta’s X-Ray quite magnificent. It has tremendous scope, richness, sustained lucidity ­ and it is moving too…’ The sweep of the book strikes me as distinctly unfashionable at the moment… I feel glad that the publisher has had the guts to challenge a prevailing climate of pared-down realities. Gavin Selerie, The Many Review. Lowenstein’s work is richly allusive, and the allusions are not to the common stock… always disciplined, but never limited, by a clear intellect… an exhilarating collection, very well produced and with a superb cover. Glyn Pursglove, Acumen.