Friday 10 July 2009

MY TEMPLAR POETRY PAMPHLET



The four winners of the 2009 Templar Poetry & Collection Competition were announced last night and I'm one of them. Yay! Tim Liardet was the judge, so thanks goes to him. (I've been keeping this under my hat for 6 weeks on instruction from the organisers - not easy for a blabber mouth like me!)

How I love pamphlets and chapbooks and I am thrilled to be one of the winners in this competition. My pamphlet is called Portrait of the Artist with a Red Car and the image above is the cover art. Cool! It's appropriate on two leverls: obviously the title poem but there is also a poem called 'Woman and Cosmetics' that mentions 5 different red lipsticks. I love the way they got that in to the design.

I really admire the way Templar produce their pamphlets - the quality is superb: they are proper little books with French flaps and a spine. I have a couple of last year's winners - Siobhán Campbell and Maggie O'Dwyer's ones - and I had poems in their Buzz anthology, which was really what prompted me to enter again this year, with a whole new set of poems.

My fellow winners - congrats to them - are:

Paul Maddern with Kelpdings

David Morley with The Rose of the Moon

Dawn Wood with Connoiseur

The pamphlets will be launched at the Derwent Poetry Festival in October or early November.

28 comments:

Totalfeckineejit said...

Congratulations WRW, a great competition and a lovely one to win.The pamphlets are indeed beautifully made with that sort of waxy matte finish.I have Maggie O'Dwyers 'Yes, I'd love to dance' and it's one of my favourite books. Loking forward to yours.

Group 8 said...

Thanks TFE. I really like Maggie's poems too. I love the swirl of smoke through the poems. There are few poems (that I've read) about smoking.
Another great cover too.

Tania Hershman said...

Congratulations!! That's such lovely news, and a beautiful cover image too. Congratulations to all of you, I look forward to reading your poetry.

Unknown said...

Well deserved congrats N - it's going to be a mega year for you!

Group 8 said...

Hi T - thank you. It's quite exciting because most of the poems are very new.

Thanks B - yes, each year seems to bring new wonderful things. It's great!

Liz said...

Wow! Nuala, huge congrats! This has been a real magical year for you...love the art and the title!
Looking forward to reading it.
x

Sarah Hilary said...

Congratulations! The pamphlet sounds beautiful. A great win!

Group 8 said...

Thanks girls. I'm really happy about it.

Niamh B said...

Congratulations, lovely cover, don't think I'd have managed to keep quiet that long!

Group 8 said...

Thanks Niamh. It was hard, believe me but they asked for secrecy so I had to keep schtum. It was nice having an exciting secret though!

Anonymous said...

Great! Well done, Nuala! The cover art is glorious!

Group 8 said...

Eimear - thanks. So jealous of you being in NY. Hope it goes brilliantly.

Rachel Fenton said...

I had no idea they were called that! I googled French flaps and when I got to the bottom of the article, realised that was me!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3637006/Marginalia-French-flaps.html

What ignorant bliss!

The cover design is very playfully endearing, and appealing; only serious words could wear that jacket and get away with it!

Congratulations!

Group 8 said...

Ha ha Rachel - yes, I think everyone has that reaction when someone says 'French flaps'!
Thanks for the congrats.
I had trouble posting a comment on your site yesterday (no verification box appeared tho there was a verif word) so I tried to get you on Facebook. Did I get the right Rachel Fenton??!!
I'll try again now!
N x

Group 8 said...

Nope, Rachel - same thing happened again. Maybe contact blogger or wordpress about it?

Anyway, re subbing a short short story, I wanted to say I was thinking of Ink, Sweat and Tears, run by Charles Christian. Link:
http://ink-sweat-and-tears.blogharbor.com/blog

Peter Goulding said...

By God, missus, you're really on a roll! That cover is brilliant, and I'm sure the poems match up! How do we mere mortals get a hold of the pamphlet? Is it through the Templar website?

Anna May said...

Well Done Nuala ! Great win and a FAB cover. I'm looking forward to reading it.
Anna May x

Batteson.Ind said...

Hi!.. this is a really interesting blog, there's some lovely links here, cheers for providing some knowledge!

Group 8 said...

Thanks v much Peter. The books will be launched/published in late Oct or early Nov and will be available to buy at Templar's website for the princely sum of £4.50 each. Last year's winners are available there now.

Anna May - thanks - mwah x

Watercats - hello and welcome! I'm going to snoop around your blog now. Thanks for stopping by - do come back.
Nuala x

Rachel Fenton said...

Hi Nuala,
I don't have a face book page as far as I know, but there are a ridiculous number of Rachel Fentons in the world - at least another seven in NZ, and one with the same D.O.B. bar one day!

Some poor Rachel's going to be perplexed! Haha!

I'll keep checking here if you still have trouble blogging me at my site.

Rachel Fenton said...

Thanks Nuala,
will get onto that..all of it!

Cheers for effort!

Padraig O'Morain said...

Congratulations. I was one of the four winners of the Poetry Business Award last year and it really does make a difference. I like pamphlets too anyway and I look forward to getting yours. Padraig O'Morain

bielby said...

Think I've fixed my comment box problem..at least my tinterweb wizard of a husband has..set comments box to appear as a pop up. Thanks again for highlighting the prob! Otherwise might have assumed I am just unpopular, lol!

Group 8 said...

Rachel - yes some other RF will be scratching her head!!
Hope the comments yokey is sorted - I will go around there and check!

Padraig - belated congrats and thank you.

Emerging Writer said...

Many congratulations. Extremely impressed. Where will they be sold?

Group 8 said...

Hi K, Thank you.
They are available to pre-order here, from the 31st July:
http://www.templarpoetry.co.uk/2009Titles.html

Peter Goulding said...

And highly commended in the iYeats competition too, I see.
Truly we are in the presence of greatness

Group 8 said...

I'm not paying Peter to say these things, honest.
The iYeats commendation is nice alright.