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Hearth
In Hearth, prize-winning poets Sarah James and Angela Topping join forces for an exciting sequence of paired poems which echo and interrogate each other, finding shared ground and surprising connections.
Home, memory and commonality are explored through objects that often surround our living spaces, our hearths, our hearts. Opening and closing with collaborative poems, the poets’ two voices come together, part and come together again.
From old fires that ‘spark and flame’ to ‘the heart of a secret’ and ‘silenced tongues’, the sequence picks out the people, places and things that shape our lives. The dialect of everyday jostles alongside the influences of Shakespeare, Ted Hughes’ Crow and Mrs Beeton. There are shared words, music and dancing, but beware also of the sharp sting of pins, ‘shadow wolves’ and falling.
Sarah and Angela’s jointly-written poem ‘Crow Lines’, taken from Hearth, was highly commended in Cheltenham Poetry Festival’s Compound Poem competition.
Home, memory and commonality are explored through objects that often surround our living spaces, our hearths, our hearts. Opening and closing with collaborative poems, the poets’ two voices come together, part and come together again.
From old fires that ‘spark and flame’ to ‘the heart of a secret’ and ‘silenced tongues’, the sequence picks out the people, places and things that shape our lives. The dialect of everyday jostles alongside the influences of Shakespeare, Ted Hughes’ Crow and Mrs Beeton. There are shared words, music and dancing, but beware also of the sharp sting of pins, ‘shadow wolves’ and falling.
Sarah and Angela’s jointly-written poem ‘Crow Lines’, taken from Hearth, was highly commended in Cheltenham Poetry Festival’s Compound Poem competition.
36 pages, Unbound
Published April 26, 2016
1 person want to read
About the author
Sarah James
10 books7 followersSarah James/Sarah Leavesley/S.A. Leavesley is an award-winning poet, fiction writer, journalist and photographer, as well as an occasional playwright, poetryfilm-maker, arts reviewer and editor at V. Press.
Author of five poetry collections, four poetry pamphlets, a poetry-play, an ACE-funded multi-media hypertext poetry narrative > Room and two novellas, she also enjoys artistic commissions, mentoring and working as a writer in residence, and was delighted to be The High Window Resident Artist for 2019.
Eight out of nine of Sarah’s solo poetry titles have won or been shortlisted/highly commended for an award.
Her eco-inspired pamphlet, RAIN FALLING (Wigtown Festival Company, 2023), won the Wigtown Poetry Prize Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize 2022.
Sarah’s CP Aware Award Prize for Poetry 2021 collection Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic (Verve Poetry Press, 2022) was also highly commended in the Forward Prizes and shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award 2023.
Meanwhile, her Overton Poetry Prize 2020 chapbook Ten Lines of More Than Just Love Notes also came out with Loughborough University in 2022.
Sarah’s other recently published books include a poetry pamphlet How to Grow Matches (Against The Grain Press), shortlisted in the International Rubery Book Awards 2018, finalist in the international Eyelands Book Awards 2019 and a poem featured as Guardian Poem of the Week, and a novella Always Another Twist (Mantle Lane Press, 2018). This is a sequel or companion novella to her novella Kaleidoscope, published by Mantle Lane Press in March 2017.
Other poetry titles include: Overton Poetry Prize pamphlet, Lampshades & Glass Rivers (Loughborough University, 2016), and the full-length poetry collection plenty-fish, published by Nine Arches Press in July 2015, previewed at Ledbury Poetry Festival and shortlisted in the International Rubery Book Awards 2016.
Working in both experimental and more mainstream styles, her The Magnetic Diaries (Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, 2015), is a modern narrative in poems based on Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and incorporating a supplementary multimedia element. The Magnetic Diaries was highly commended in the Forward Prize. Sarah’s one-act poetry-play version of the collection was selected for and performed by Reaction Theatre Makers at the 2015 Write On Festival at Hereford’s The Courtyard theatre, a ‘highly recommended show’ during its 2-week run at Edinburgh Fringe 2016 and on an ACE-funded 2016 tour including Ledbury Poetry Festival, Birmingham MAC and London’s The Vaults.
Her individual poems have won or been shortlisted for many prizes, including winning the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. She has had poems published by the Financial Times, the Guardian, The Forward Book of Poetry, on Worcestershire buses and in the Blackpool Illuminations.
Sarah’s other work includes editing, mentoring, facilitating workshops, commissions, residencies and festival readings. Her poetry has featured on the BBC, in poetryfilms and on radio.
She is also a published essay and CNF writer, longlisted in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2018: Aberystwyth University Prize for an Essay Collection and for the memoir prize in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2017.
Her website is at www.sarah-james.co.uk and she runs V. Press, a poetry and flash imprint shortlisted in The Michael Marks Publishers’ Award 2017 (http://vpresspoetry.blogspot.co.uk).
Her books include:
RAIN FALLING (Wigtown Festival Company, 2023), poetry pamphlet, winner of the Wigtown Poetry Prize Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize 2022;
Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic (Verve Poetry Press, 2022), poetry collection, winner of the CP Aware Award Prize for Poetry 2021, highly commended in the Forward Prizes and shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award 2023;
Ten Lines of More Than Just Love Notes (Loughborough University, 2022), poetry pamphlet, winner of the Overton Poetry Prize 2020 chapbook;
Always Another Twi
Author of five poetry collections, four poetry pamphlets, a poetry-play, an ACE-funded multi-media hypertext poetry narrative > Room and two novellas, she also enjoys artistic commissions, mentoring and working as a writer in residence, and was delighted to be The High Window Resident Artist for 2019.
Eight out of nine of Sarah’s solo poetry titles have won or been shortlisted/highly commended for an award.
Her eco-inspired pamphlet, RAIN FALLING (Wigtown Festival Company, 2023), won the Wigtown Poetry Prize Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize 2022.
Sarah’s CP Aware Award Prize for Poetry 2021 collection Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic (Verve Poetry Press, 2022) was also highly commended in the Forward Prizes and shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award 2023.
Meanwhile, her Overton Poetry Prize 2020 chapbook Ten Lines of More Than Just Love Notes also came out with Loughborough University in 2022.
Sarah’s other recently published books include a poetry pamphlet How to Grow Matches (Against The Grain Press), shortlisted in the International Rubery Book Awards 2018, finalist in the international Eyelands Book Awards 2019 and a poem featured as Guardian Poem of the Week, and a novella Always Another Twist (Mantle Lane Press, 2018). This is a sequel or companion novella to her novella Kaleidoscope, published by Mantle Lane Press in March 2017.
Other poetry titles include: Overton Poetry Prize pamphlet, Lampshades & Glass Rivers (Loughborough University, 2016), and the full-length poetry collection plenty-fish, published by Nine Arches Press in July 2015, previewed at Ledbury Poetry Festival and shortlisted in the International Rubery Book Awards 2016.
Working in both experimental and more mainstream styles, her The Magnetic Diaries (Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, 2015), is a modern narrative in poems based on Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and incorporating a supplementary multimedia element. The Magnetic Diaries was highly commended in the Forward Prize. Sarah’s one-act poetry-play version of the collection was selected for and performed by Reaction Theatre Makers at the 2015 Write On Festival at Hereford’s The Courtyard theatre, a ‘highly recommended show’ during its 2-week run at Edinburgh Fringe 2016 and on an ACE-funded 2016 tour including Ledbury Poetry Festival, Birmingham MAC and London’s The Vaults.
Her individual poems have won or been shortlisted for many prizes, including winning the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. She has had poems published by the Financial Times, the Guardian, The Forward Book of Poetry, on Worcestershire buses and in the Blackpool Illuminations.
Sarah’s other work includes editing, mentoring, facilitating workshops, commissions, residencies and festival readings. Her poetry has featured on the BBC, in poetryfilms and on radio.
She is also a published essay and CNF writer, longlisted in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2018: Aberystwyth University Prize for an Essay Collection and for the memoir prize in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2017.
Her website is at www.sarah-james.co.uk and she runs V. Press, a poetry and flash imprint shortlisted in The Michael Marks Publishers’ Award 2017 (http://vpresspoetry.blogspot.co.uk).
Her books include:
RAIN FALLING (Wigtown Festival Company, 2023), poetry pamphlet, winner of the Wigtown Poetry Prize Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize 2022;
Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic (Verve Poetry Press, 2022), poetry collection, winner of the CP Aware Award Prize for Poetry 2021, highly commended in the Forward Prizes and shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award 2023;
Ten Lines of More Than Just Love Notes (Loughborough University, 2022), poetry pamphlet, winner of the Overton Poetry Prize 2020 chapbook;
Always Another Twi
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