Martin Figura, "The Remaining Men"

Martin Figura was (some time ago now) described in a hospital referral letter (bad back) as ‘a pleasant 58 year old gentleman.’ His collection and show Whistle were shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and won the 2013 Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Show. Shed (Gatehouse Press) and Dr Zeeman’s Catastrophe Machine (Cinnamon Press) were both published in 2016. During the first lockdown he began the monthly Zoom event Live From The Butchery with Helen Ivory and Kate Birch. It won the Best Spoken Word Night Saboteur Award. In 2021 he was Salisbury NHS Writer in Residence, with a pamphlet My Name is Mercy from Fair Acre Press. Some of this work has been filmed with Olivia Coleman and published in the Guardian. A second pamphlet from Fair Acre Press, Sixteen Sonnets for Care, from a commission for Social Care charities was published in 2022. His new collection The Remaining Men came out with Cinnamon Press in February 2024. He lives in Norwich with Helen Ivory and sciatica. The show Shed is returning to the stage in April 2024, three years after its Covid postponement. Martin has performed his work all over the place from Diss to New York to New Delhi and on BBC 1 Breakfast. His website is here. 

About The Remaining Men, by Martin Figura
The collection is I suppose a reckoning - an attempt to make sense of how we and I got here, from when I arrived on the scene in 1956. It includes just a few autobiographical poems, but mostly looks outward to small human stories. There are some poems about political leaders, that I have mostly tried to reduce to that same human level, whatever the colour of their politics. I realise it is quite ambitious and wide in its range, but hope I’ve manged to pull the threads together in a convincing way.

As the title implies, I have touched on what has been expected of men, particularly working-class men, and how they have been discarded as the world has changed about them. In an age when men are widely looked on in a pejorative way, and with plenty of justification, I hope I’ve managed to do this with some tenderness and understanding. I am not tackling the so called ‘culture wars’ - that minefield doesn’t need another old white man blundering about in it. In addition to my own experiences, I’ve also drawn on residences including a Miners’ village in Durham, the NHS, The Soldiers’ Charity and Social Services. 

You can read more about The Remaining Men on the publisher's website here. You can read a review of the book by Peter Raynard on Everybody's Reviewing here. Below, you can read two sample poems from the collection. 

From The Remaining Men

The Remaining Men 

When the men surfaced for the last time and dispersed 

some were left over. These men wandered about the town 

until they each found their own particular sweet spot.  

Then they just stood there, looking out over the scarred coast

through red-rimmed eyes to the rough brown sea.  

As the days went by people gave up asking them 

why so still and could they fetch someone 

or something? They became like street signage, 

A-boards, parked prams or tied up dogs; something

to be manoeuvred around. As the months went by 

the men became hardened to difficult weather 

filling their coat pockets with hail. During the great storm 

of Eighty-Seven, their caps blew off and went cartwheeling 

down the streets with bin lids. As the years went by 

the slagheaps faded to green and saplings were planted.  

The men began to petrify into monuments. When 

the new road for the business park went through 

a lot of them were tipped back onto trollies, like the ones 

railway porters used to use, then loaded on to flatbed trucks 

with the traffic cones. Most were broken down for aggregate.  

The lucky ones were sold off as novelty porch lights 

and stood outside front doors on the new estate 

illuminating small front lawns and driveways.  

As the decades went by, saplings became sycamores 

and elms and named Colliery Wood. In autumn

the early morning light on them was glorious 

and cycle paths made their way there. The remaining 

men were defaced by graffiti and badly worn 

by then, many considered them to be an eyesore.  

When children asked what they were, not everyone 

could remember and of those that did, few were believed.  

As the centuries went by, they all but disappeared, 

only the circle in the park remained. Archaeologists 

and historians disagree about how they came to be there 

and what they might have been used for.

Harold Wilson Rows Towards Bishop Rock  

Harold, knees like little moons, bends 
his back, puffs through the clamouring
halyards of the bay. Always six moves ahead 
of the other buggers, be they Old Etonians 
or fellow grammar grubbers.  And where else 
to escape serious concerns, but these Scilly Isles.  
 
The cormorant is attentive company 
at the blunt end of the boat, kinked wings 
hung out to dry, Harold’s words gulped down 
like slippery fish. The oars are worn soft 
in their locks, while he rows he recalls himself
a boy in a school cap, at the steps of Number Ten. 
 
On the slipway, Mary diminishes to the red dot 
of her coat.  The lighthouse lays down her path, 
tugs the glow of Gannex mac and pipe smoke 
through the net curtain of mizzle. Mary turns,
heads up the slope towards the archipelago’s 
clustered lights and their ugly little bungalow.

Rhian Elizabeth, "girls etc"

Rhian Elizabeth was born in 1988 in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales, and now lives in Cardiff. She is a writer and a trainee counsellor. Her debut novel, Six Pounds Eight Ounces, was published in 2014 by Seren Books and is currently being adapted for TV, and her poetry collection, the last polar bear on earth, was published in 2018 by Parthian Books. Her prose and poetry have been listed in various competitions and prizes and appeared in many magazines and anthologies, as well as being featured on Radio 4’s PM programme. She was named by the welsh agenda as one of Wales’ Rising Stars - one of thirty people working to make Wales better over the next thirty years. She is a Hay Festival Writer at Work and Writer in Residence at the Coracle International Literary Festival in Tranås, Sweden. Her next poetry collection, girls etc, will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2024.

About girls etc
The language in Rhian Elizabeth's poetry feels instinctual: the poems in girls etc pulse and ripple with energy, their rhythms perfectly pitched. Elizabeth writes of personal experience with an intensity and sharpness that challenges you to look closely. girls etc showcases a defiance, alongside the beauty and vulnerability, which resonates long after the last page is turned. Rhian Elizabeth brings a breath of fresh air to contemporary poetry.

You can read more about girls etc on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read two sample poems from the collection. 

From girls etc, by Rhian Elizabeth

i am the captain

in films and tv shows

they always give boats female names

so i name this one after

the best lover

i ever had

it is rude to say 

now i can ride her!

i never did learn

how to properly handle a vessel

as mighty as a woman

i turn the key in the ignition

the open ocean beckons

her engine rumbles

and i am the captain.

if we could just go back i’d push you higher

at the playground the stink from last night’s fire on the 

mountain infiltrates the summer air, lingering like bad breath

you send the pushchair toppling, come flying out of the seat 

as soon as i release the clip like you’re a parachuter ejecting 

i sit on a bench and watch you zoom around, 

free falling between the various apparatus  

up the steps and down the slide up the steps and down the slide 

swinging from the bars 

like a curly yellow haired little monkey

you ride the seesaw solo

adamant that it’s a unicorn

up the steps and down the slide up the steps and down the slide

until you summon me over to the swings 

where i push you half-heartedly

chubby toes wriggling in your sandals

clumps of pink varnish spread haphazardly across the nails 

as if you’ve been colouring outside the lines

but you insisted on doing it all by yourself 

or maybe i was too busy?

this poem is a memory

19 years old and playing at being a mother  

the way you played with your dolls

you deserved so much better, so much better

and now it spins and it spins and it spins

guilt is a roundabout   

                        that won't ever let you get off.

Z. R. Ghani, "In the Name of Red"

 

Z. R. Ghani is from London. She graduated with a B.A. in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University in 2012. Her poems, which explore themes of identity, femininity, religion, and nature, have been published in literary journals such as Magma, Black Bough Poetry and The Adriatic. In 2021 her first collection of poems was shortlisted in the Poetry Wales Pamphlet Competition.

About In the Name of Red
From lips and warmed cheeks to silk and falling leaves, the subjects of Z.R. Ghani's poems radiate with redness. Sometimes a cloak, often a shining symbol, Ghani's reds are sacred and dazzling: pomegranates ripening to jewels and perfectly-placed bindis shining like suns.

But something darker lurks beneath the ruby depths. A city is held hostage by a heatwave, a flame is lit in a dark room, a ballerina twists inside a jewellery box.

As though developing photographs, Ghani shines a deep light over her poems as a tool to slowly make the unseen visible, the unsaid audible. This is a debut book rich with desire, shame, grief, faith, love, and at the forefront of it all: the colour red.

You can read more about In the Name of Red on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read a sample poem from the collection. 

From In the Name of Red, by Z. R. Ghani

Mother

There are reasons to grieve today.
Mother runs a cold tap
over slabs of laundry,
cursing the day she was born.
That unwashed stench of hospital—
flesh, sweat, placenta
lolls over me like a suicide.
Her fourth daughter is a week old;
I’m not the youngest anymore.
I can’t help but steal glances,
though I’ll soon hear haunting  
thuds as she beats herself, 
or threatens to drink bleach. 

Amrita Manku, "The Incident"

Congratulations to University of Leicester graduate Amrita Manku, whose play The Incident is being performed at the Curve Theatre this Friday!

Amrita Manku is an emerging writer and director from Derby who studied a Minor in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. She is interested in creating and telling stories that hold up a mirror to society, start meaningful conversations and leave the audience thinking. Her first play, The Incident, is a comedic speculative fiction piece that explores themes of fate and destiny. The play will be performed script-in-hand as one of four showings for the Kali Discovery Showcase 2024 at the Curve Theatre as part of their New Work Festival.

About The Incident
A typical evening takes a cosmic turn when a stranger pays Sage a visit, derailing life as she knew it. This is a humorous and unexpected take on reclaiming one’s destiny and the intertwining threads of fate and consequence. Amrita developed three drafts of her script over a six month period with dramaturgical support from director, writer and dramaturg, Aisha Khan.

There are two performances of the play on Friday 1 March, at 3pm and 7pm. You can find out more on the Curve's website here. 

"Nature, the Environment and Sustainability" Short Story Competition: Final Results

 

Photo: cocoparisienne @ Pixabay

The Centre for New Writing and Centre for Environmental Health and Sustainability and the are delighted to announce the winners and runners-up in the ‘Nature, the Environment & Sustainability’ Story Competition.

Joint Winners 
Lee Wright, ‘The Fog Harvesters’
Sophie Sparham, ‘Flood’

Specially Commended
Alice Newitt, ‘Before The Grasses Or The Musings Of An Immortal Being Waiting For The World To End’

Runners Up
Sam Dawson, ‘Cetiosaurus’
Carol Rowntree Jones, ‘If a Forest’
 
The judge, Mark Cocker, could not separate the top two, Sophie Sparham and Lee Wright, and we have split the winning prize. Each will receive £300 and be published in the next edition of the Leicester Literary Review. Mark also made a special commendation for Alice Newitt’s story, which is awarded £200. There are two further runners up, Carol Rowntree Jones and Sam Dawson, who receive £100 each. Runners up will be published on Creative Writing at Leicester.
 
Our winners and runners up will be presenting their work, alongside a reading and talk from our judge Mark Cocker, at a special competition celebration event at this year’s Literary Leicester festival on Thursday March 21st at 4pm. To book your free ticket, go the festival ticket site here. 
 
Congratulations to our winners and runners up, to our shortlistees who had the opportunity of a wonderfully inspiring masterclass with our judge, and well done to everyone who entered. The submissions were of truly excellent quality.

Prize-giving at Literary Leicester Festival

Neil Fulwood, "The Point of the Stick"

Neil Fulwood was born in Nottingham, where he still lives and works as a bus driver. He has published three previous collections with Shoestring Press: No Avoiding It, Can’t Take Me Anywhere and Service Cancelled; a collection of political satires, Mad Parade, with Smokestack Books; and two pamphlets, Numbers Stations and The Little Book of Forced Calm, with The Black Light Engine Room Press. Additionally, he has written three books of film criticism, including The Films of Sam Peckinpah, and co-edited with David Sillitoe the tribute anthology More Raw Material: Work Inspired by Alan Sillitoe. Neil is married, no children, but has a time-share arrangement on his neighbours’ cats.

About The Point of the Stick, by Neil Fulwood
On 6 June 2023, I wrote an untitled eight-line poem about the conductor Leopold Stokowski and sent it to friends on a Messenger group dedicated to classical music. It was intended as a bit of fun: a “guess the maestro” challenge. They guessed correctly, reported that they’d enjoyed the poem and urged me to send another. And another. 

By the end of the month, at which point the Muse threw her hands up and took a leave of absence, I’d produced a sequence of thirty-nine poems, each one seeking to distil the essence of one of the great maestri, either by alluding to their personality or focusing on a formative moment in their life or career. These have now been brought together in The Point of the Stick, a collection which races allegro con brio through a century of recorded music and the maestri who dominated the podium. The poems remain untitled (a list at the end of the book provides a who’s who) and I present the following two poems in just such a format and invite readers to guess at their identity.

From The Point of the Stick

The composer-conductor 
as two-way street;
highbrow educator 
as hep-cat populist.

White tuxedo, bow tie:
podium elegance shot through
with Hollywood cool.
Surface and depth.

He conducts as if possessed
or transported. Mahler 
surges through him, 
an ecstasy of revelation.


*


Mr Hollywood, suave sultan
of the soundtrack; jazz
pianist par excellence; now
maestro, music night popular 

career unfolding as a preview
of coming attractions 

all the right moves made,
by anybody’s definition, 
in absolutely the right order.

Chris Emery, "Modern Fog"

Chris Emery was born in Manchester in 1963. He is a director of Salt, an independent trade publisher, and is the former Director of Operations and Director of Development for The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in North Norfolk. He has published three collections of poetry, a writer’s guide, an anthology of art and poems, and edited selections of Emily Brontë, Keats and Rossetti.

About Modern Fog
This wide-ranging and mercurial collection contains poems on landscapes, living rooms, love and pilgrimage, birds and animals, flowers, grandmothers, novelists and composers, car parks and coastal resorts – all interspersed with modern folk tales. 

At the centre of the book lies a striking twelve-part meditation on the medieval church of St. Helen’s in Ranworth, Norfolk – known as the ‘Cathedral of the Broads.’

By turns bucolic, elegiac or enquiring, Emery’s ludic poems depict our common experiences and anxieties – his conjured worlds always filled with mystery and beauty.

You can read more about Modern Fog on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read two sample poems from the collection. 

From Modern Fog, by Chris Emery

Stags

          As a deer pants for flowing streams,
               so pants my soul for you

- Psalm 42 :1

When you see that they have passed like fire dreams
you wake to, you ’ll know they have run through
what ’s forsaken. You can ’t remember how
each was elegant, bronze, and silent

where now the hawthorn is readjusting,
waving briefly, having stored such regal frames.
All that remains is absence in sycamore
shoots, alder and ash and rhododendron

that seem urgent now. They ’ve gone, and the dogs
are astounded at the edge of what ’s never
fully grasped : nothing to chase into mould
and stasis below the cold fitting pines,

yet still, inside your eyes, the chestnut haunches
of the broken gods you wish to see here
are this store of grace and loss for you.
It is the last religion in these woods.


The Visit

All the grandmothers in the world
are gathered beneath a willow,
its green drapes are filled with black fly.
They are wearing Linton dresses,
garters, aprons, slippers and brooches,
and they talk about sheep or sewing.

They all agree loudly everything is dying,
even Edna with her tenacious pig,
everyone is dying or ill or drunk,
and men stink. It is three o ’clock, children
begin to squirm from red shadows
to burn like lights in the park.

The grandmothers fall silent, watching.
Some begin to cry at the bright scene
while the children roll their eyes,
wander by the willow, hot with life.
In far hills darkened by diesel, men
prepare tanks for one final visit.