Two publications and their editors showed up at my reading on the 19th in Sheffield:

Broken Compass (0.1) is a mysterious little red pamphlet with a drawing of crows flocking over some houses as cover. The editor, Chris Brownsword, equally mysterious, faded into the rain after the reading. The anthology features some top-rate work by J.H. Prynne, Peter Finch, Alan Halsey, Geraldine Monk, Andy Hiirst and Scott Thurston, among others. The editor can be contacted at: cbrownsword@hotmail.com

Fire 27 is, as usual, an explosion of poetry weighing in at 203 pages. While Chris was tall and evaporating, Jeremy Hilton was grounded in cut-offs, a frizz of gray hair, sandals and a sad smile. He, too, left almost immediately after the reading after pressing his latest collection of poetry (Lighting Up Time; Selected Poems 1991–2004, with intro. by Harry Guest, Troubador) stacked atop Fire into my grip. Fire is important because it always gives a pretty good snapshot of a particular moment in the world of alternative literature. The collection starts out with good work from Chris Torrance and proceeds, proceeds, proceeds! Peter Gizzi is also here, as well as that mystery man Brownsword. Fire’s website can be found at: www.poetical.org.