Frogmore Poets read in Lewes in June

Clare Best

On Wednesday 12 June from 7.30 pm Margaret Wilmot launches her new pamphlet Sweet Coffee at the Lewes Arms.

On Thursday 27 June at 7.45pm Clare Best will be reading at Needlewriters with Brighton's John O'Donoghue and Sasha Dugdale, poet, translator and editor of Modern Poetry in Translation.

Sasha Dugdale

More info here: http://www.needlewriters.co.uk/#/whats-on/4539813579

Last call for submissions for the 27th Frogmore Poetry Prize

Last call for submissions for the 27th Frogmore Poetry Prize, this year adjudicated by Stephanie Norgate. The deadline is 31st May.

THE FROGMORE POETRY PRIZE 2013

Sponsored by the Frogmore Press www.frogmorepress.co.uk The winner of the Frogmore Poetry Prize for 2013 will win two hundred guineas and a two-year subscription to The Frogmore Papers. The first and second runners-up will receive seventy-five and fifty guineas respectively and a year’s subscription to The Frogmore Papers. Shortlisted poets will receive copies of selected Frogmore Press publications. Previous winners of the Prize have been David Satherley, Caroline Price, Bill Headdon, John Latham, Diane Brown, Tobias Hill, Mario Petrucci, Gina Wilson, Ross Cogan, Joan Benner, Ann Alexander, Gerald Watts, Katy Darby, David Angel , Howard Wright, Julie-ann Rowell, Arlene Ang, Peter Marshall, Gill Andrews, A K S Shaw, Sharon Black and Emily Wills. Adjudicator:  Stephanie Norgate is a playwright and poet. She lives in Sussex and runs the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester. Her plays have been produced on the London Fringe and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Fireclay, a Poetry Business prize-winning pamphlet appeared in 1998, followed by a selection of poems in Oxford Poets 2000. Her two collections with Bloodaxe are Hidden River (2008), which was shortlisted for both the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, and The Blue Den (2012). She is currently editing a book of international essays on poetry and voice. Conditions of Entry Poems must be in English, unpublished, and not accepted for future publication. Poems should be typed and no longer than forty lines. Any number of poems may be entered on payment of the appropriate fee of £3 per poem.   Cheques and postal orders should be made payable to The Frogmore Press The following methods of payment are acceptable: cheque drawn on UK bank; British postal order; sterling.   Each poem should be on a separate sheet, which should not include the name of the author. The author’s name and address should be provided on an accompanying sheet of paper. The winner, runners-up and shortlisted poets will be notified by post. All shortlisted poems will appear in number 82 ofThe Frogmore Papers (September 2013), which will be available at £5.00 from the address below, and on the Frogmore Press website.           To receive a copy of the results, please enclose an s.a.e. marked ‘Results’. Poems cannot be returned. Closing date for submissions: 31 May 2013. Copyright of all poems submitted will remain with the authors but the Frogmore Press reserves the right to publish all shortlisted poems. The adjudicator’s decision will be final and no correspondence can be entered into. Entries should be sent to: The Frogmore Press, 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1PJ. The submission of poems for the Prize will be taken as indicating acceptance of the above conditions

Frogmore celebrates its 30th birthday - in Brighton, London and Folkestone

John McCullough, Maria Jastrzebska, Michaela Ridgway and Jeremy Page at the NVT

John McCullough wriggling his toes

Frogmore celebrated thirty years of publishing this month with events at the New Venture Theatre, Brighton (compered by Managing Editor, Alexandra Loske) on 5 May and the Poetry Café, Betterton Street, Covent Garden (compered by Frogmore Papers editor Jeremy Page) on 15 May. Readers in Brighton – JohnMcCullough, Maria Jastrzebska, Jeremy Page and Michaela Ridgway – had the surreal experience of reading from the set of Sartre’s Huis Clos, which was mid-run at the NVT.  

Managing Editor Alexandra Loske on a faux Regency phone cabinet

Maria Jastrzebska reclining on the chaise-longue

Readers in London – John Mackay, Abegail Morley, Jeremy Worman and Tamar Yoseloff – provided both poetry and prose between them, the evening concluding with founding editor Jeremy Page reading a short selection of favourite poems published in The Frogmore Papers down the years.

Saturday (18 May) saw the last of the celebratory events, with readings from co-founders André Evans and Jeremy Page at the Amphitheatre in Folkestone, a stone’s throw from the site of the celebrated tea-rooms where the Press was founded.  

Jeremy Page and André Evans at the Folkestone Amphiteatre

An appreciative audience heard André read from his introduction to the first issue of The Frogmore Papers and also his co-founder’s 1983 ‘Requiem for Frogmore’.  Jeremy read a poem originally commissioned by Kent Arts and Libraries for its ‘Century of Kent Writers’ project, evoking Folkestone’s unlikely associations with Charles Dickens, Samuel Beckett and Philip Larkin, before concluding his reading with a selection of Flexostructuralist poems by Bob Mitchell. Mitchell’s work was championed by the Frogmore Press in the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the publication of the now very rare and much sought after classic Bush Klaxon Has A Body Like A Trio Sonata in 1991.

Coming next from Frogmore:

On 1 July issue 7 of morphrog, Frogmore’s online journal, will go live.

In July, the results of the 27^th Frogmore Poetry Prize, adjudicated by Stephanie Norgate, will be announced.  The deadline for entries is 31 May.

In September number 82 of The Frogmore Papers will be published.  The issue will feature the Frogmore Prize shortlist and a cover by Rye-based artist Leah Fusco.

Frogmore poet at the Mayfield Fringe Festival on Sunday (12 May)

Frogmore Poets Clare Best, Kim Lasky, Jeremy Page and Marek Urbanowicz will be reading at the Mayfield Fringe Festival on Sunday (12 May) ahead of the publication of the ‘Exiles’ double issue of Agenda. 
Other readers will be June English and Agenda editor, Patricia McCarthy, who will read her National Poetry Prize winning poem. 6.30 at The Middle House, Mayfield. 
Details here:
http://www.mayfieldfringe.co.uk/Mayfield_Fringe_Festival/Details_of_Events_%26_Artists.html

Clare Best

Frogmore Poets celebrate their 30th Birthday (in association with New Venture Theatre) on 5 May

Upcoming Frogmore events

The next six weeks look set to be very busy ones for Frogmore.…

Thursday 25 May:  Frogmore contributors Judith Kazantzis and Irving Weinman will read at Needlewriters in Lewes.  Details at: http://www.needlewriters.co.uk/#/whats-on/4539813579

Sunday 5 May:  Frogmore’s 30^th birthday will be celebrated with readings by Maria Jastrzebska, John McCullough, Jeremy Page and Michaela Ridgway at the New Venture Theatre, Brighton.  7.45 pm, tickets £7.00.

Wednesday 15 May:  Frogmore’s 30^th birthday will be celebrated with readings by John Mackay, Abegail Morley, Jeremy Worman and Tamar Yoseloff at the Poetry Cafe, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2.  7.00 pm, free entry.

Saturday 18 May:  Frogmore returns to its Folkestone roots.  Founders André

Evans and Jeremy Page will read at the amphitheatre on the Lower Sandgate Road.  Details tbc.

Friday 31 May is the deadline for submissions to the next edition of morphrog – Poetry in the Extreme (Frogmore’s online journal).  Submisison should be made by email to: morphrog@gmail.com

Friday 31 May is also the deadline for receipt of entries for the 27^th annual Frogmore Poetry Prize, to be adjudicated by Stephanie Norgate.  Full details are available at: http://www.frogmorepress.co.uk/  All shortlisted poems will be published in the September issue of The Frogmore Papers.

And finally, to mark Frogmore’s 30^th birthday anyone taking out a two-year subscription to The Frogmore Papers in May will receive a free parcel of Frogmore publications along with the latest issue.  A two-year subscription covers four issues and costs only £15.00.  Cheques to: The Frogmore Press, 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes BN7 1PJ.

Frogmore's 30th birthday issue out now

The 81st issue of The Frogmore Papers is out now. Subscribers will receive their copies shortly. The cover art is by David J Markham, who also designed the cover for last year's anthology Languages of Colour. It features his interpretation of a vintage photograph of the original Frogmore Tearooms at Folkestone. Click here for more information on DJ Markham's work. 

Contributors to this issue: John Aldridge, David Ball, Mike Barlow, Sharon Black, Oliver Comins, Luigi Coppola,Tim Cresswell, Michael Curtis, Michael Fraley, Sam Gardiner, Jonathan Greenhause, Robert Hamberger, Sheila Hillier, Samantha Jackson, Antony Johae, Denise McSheehy, David McVey, Abegail Morley, Mark A. Murphy, Isabel Palmer, Patricia Pogson, Martin Richards, Matthew Stewart, Michael Swan, John Duncan Talbird, Alexei Talimonov, Emma Timpany, Vivienne Tregenza, Mary Wight, Margaret Wilmot, Jeremy Worman.

To subscribe send a cheque/postal order for £15-00 (two years, four issues) or £10-00 (one year, two issues) payable to 'The Frogmore Press', 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1PJ. 
New subscribers receive a complimentary title from our back catalogue.

Individual issues are available post-free from the Frogmore Press at £5, and from Skylark in the Needlemakers in Lewes. http://www.skylarkshop.com/