...by any other name...

So, we launched the pamphlet Ask for It By Name, from Unfold Press. The poets: Simon Barraclough, Olivia Cole, Isobel Dixon, Luke Heeley, Liane Strauss and Roisin Tierney.

It's "A well-stocked anthology of fresh produce from six prize-winning poets. Behind the bottles and the butter you'll find Mussolini cheating on the tennis court and meet the shark from Jaws in a Yorkshire millpond; glimpse the love of woman for orang-utan and make it across the Spanish-Italian border; spy on the hobbies of cowboys and drink deep of the Molotov cocktail of love..." (from the back cover) £5/€7,00.

It's a beautiful thing, a squarish pamphletty book with a lovely yellow spine, designed by Lynne Stuart, who turns out to be a Hackney resident! I found this out when we spoke last night! Of course she is.

Anyway, the event was like a who's-who of the most thrilling echelons of the London poetry scene, and (though I hadn't realised this beforehand) it was also Burns Night! So the estimable brother-in-law of Simon Barraclough, David Adams, broke the ice well and truly with an extremely rousing recitation of Burns' To a Mouse. This is a poem you just never seem to read all the way through, at least I haven't in ages, and my God it was wonderful. Also wonderful to invoke the man himself into our event. And in the right accent.

The event was attended by five of the six members of The Like Of It anthology, which overlaps with Ask For It By Name by one member, Liane Strauss. (The other common denominator is the word "It": can this be mere coincidence??)

(nb. If you would like to buy a copy of The Like Of It, you can either click on the link above, or you can email me. There have been endless problems with the distribution of this book, for reasons which are far too tedious to go into. However there are several spare copies nestling cosily in a corner of Baroque Mansions, wirth "free postage" written on their happy smiling faces...)

The evening was a success, then! Hurrah! The room was packed, and although Ms B and her companion missed the free bar (like, what are those other people? Hyenas?? We arrived by 7!) and Ms B never got one morsel of the snacks (having distinctly seen an entire platter of pork pies arrive in the room) I think these facts merely testify to the gargantuan appeal of the book, and the gargantuan appetites of the guests. Hungry for poetry. Hungry for life. Hungry for, well, anything. A hunger that can't be named...