PUBLICATIONS LIST

SIMON ARMITAGE
The Walking Horses Poetry 20pp A5 pamphlet £1.50 ISBN 0 871033 01 2 1988 O/P

Around Robinson Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 0 871033 10 1 1990 O/P

ALBERT BAKER
The Sound of Wings Poetry 24pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 31 4 1995 O/P

•   Lines from one of Al Baker's poems 'Tami Jane Tells Him What Has Been On Her Mind For A Long Time' can be found in Chapter 16 of the Resnick novel Easy Meat

ROMULUS BUCUR
Ditties Poetry  28pp A5 pamphlet  £2.50/$5.00  ISBN 1 87103355 1

• Dual-language Romanian-English edition

Thirst Poetry  64pp 224x148mm paperback  £7.99/$13.95  ISBN 1 871033 50 0  1999

•  Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, 1999
•   "A joy!" Time Out

•  "A gorgeous, haunting collection"  Poetry London

HUME CRONYN
Birdhouse Contributions Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £3.00 ISBN 1 871033 22 5 1993 O/P

CATHERINE DAVIDSON
Inheriting The Ocean  Poetry 28 pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 35 7 1996 O/P

JILL DAWSON
White Fish With Painted Nails Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £3.00 ISBN 1 871033 26 8 

SUE DYMOKE
Sometime Other Than Now  Poetry - with John Harvey 16pp A5 pamphlet £1.00 
ISBN 1 871033 00 4 O/P

Hunting Ground  Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £3.00 ISBN 1 871033 20 9 O/P

AMANDA EASON
In That Country  Poetry 16pp A5 pamphlet £1.00 ISBN 1 871033 06 3 1989 O/P

ROBERT ETTY
Marking Places  Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £3.00 ISBN 1 871033 27 6 1994 O/P 

JANET FISHER
Listening to Dancing Poetry 16pp A5 pamphlet £1.00 ISBN 1 871033 07 1 1989 O/P

Nobody Move  Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £3.00 ISBN 1 871033 19 5 1992 O/P

IULIAN FRUNTASAU
God's Ear Poetry  28pp A5 pamphlet £2.50/$5.00

•     Dual-language Romanian-English edition

REBECCA GOSS
Keeping Houston Time Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet Price £2.50/$5.00. ISBN 1 870133 39 X O/P 

LAVINIA GREENLAW
Love From a Foreign City Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £3.00 ISBN 1 871033 18 7 1993 O/P

HEATHER HAND
Eating Pearls  Poetry 24pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 25 X 1993 O/P
The Projector  Poetry 24pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 32 2 1995 O/P

JOHN HARVEY
The Old Postcard Trick  Poetry & Photographs 20pp A5 pamphlet £1.00 ISBN 0 9507479 3 9 1984 O/P 

Taking The Long Road HomePoetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £2.00 ISBN 1 871033 04 7 1988 

TerritoryPoetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 15 2 1993 

Blue Lightning  (Editor)  Fiction  424pp B format paperback  £7.99/$14.95  ISBN 1 87103343 8  1998 

• Short stories with a musical theme or background by Charlotte Carter, Rosanne Cash, Liza Cody
• Stella Duffy, Jeffery Deaver, Kirsty Gunn, John Harvey, Michael Z. Lewin, Bill Moody,
• Walter Mosley, Gary Phillips, Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson,James Sallis, Julie Smith,
• Neville Smith, Brian Thompson, JohnWilliams
• "The most entertaining crime fiction of the year"  The Times

• Limited edition of 1000, 400 of which were numbered and signed

•  "A perfect coda to the most accomplished crime series of the 1990s" Booklist

Dream Quilt: 30 Assorted Stories Prose 48pp A5 Pbk £3.  ISBN 0 9507479 4 7 1985 O/P 

In the Mists: Mountain Poems Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £3.00 ISBN 1 871033 23 3 1993 O/P 

Morning Light   Poetry 72pp 224x148mm paperback  £6.99/$13.95  ISBN 1 871033 41 1 1998 

•   "A master of the craft"  Poetry Quarterly Review

Renewal Soup  Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 34 9 1996 O/P 

A Cracked River  Poetry  64pp 224x148pp paperback  £7.99/$14.95  1999 

The first book -length collection from a widely travelled American physician and writer whose earlier Slow Dancer  pamphlet, Renewal Soup, earned high praise. With a voice which is characterized both by wisdom and vulnerability, Hirschhorn explores what it is like to be Jewish, to be married and then unmarried and then married again, to be in love and open to experience. These are poems of enquiry and acceptance, of a man finding his place in the world. 

'These poems are full of a wisdom and a depth I  see very rarely in poetry.... This is a beautiful book,
one to be cherished, and if some major British publisher doesn't bring us a full collection soon, there's
no justice'
STEVEN WALING on RENEWAL SOUP

'Hirschhorn's poems travel from Minnesota to Cambodia to Java, effortlessly - what connects them is the confidence of his voice, which is at once very personal and direct'
POETRY LONDON

LIBBY HOUSTON

'Libby Houston has an original voice, which is hard to characterize.... She likes to contemplate rottenness, rotting and the agents of change and decay, blowflies, maggots and mould, which she describes with a nice precision which remove them to the safe world of wit on the one hand, or fairy tale on the other. she looks at tiny details and large movements of life and time, like all good writers; a poet, a woman, not particularly a woman poet.' 
A.S BYATT

Necessity  Poetry 56pp A5 Pbk £3.00 ISBN 1 871033 02 01988 O/P

Out of Necessity Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 36 5 1996 O/P

Cover of Darkness Selected Poems  160pp 224x148mm paperback  £8.99/$15.95 

For four decades, Houston's poetry has walked an exhilarating high wire, scorning fashion and compromise. This collection brings together for the first time the very best of her work, including new versions of older texts and a number of poems which have not appeared before in book form. 

•  A brilliant poet craftily at work"  Judith Kazantzis

Jump! Poetry with Photographs by John Harvey 16pp A5 pamphlet £1.50 ISBN 0 871033 00 4 1987 O/P 

The Song of Orpheus Poetry 18pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 38 1 1996 O/P 

DAVID KRESH
Bloody Joy : Love Poems Poetry 48pp A5 pamphlet £1.00 ISBN 0 9507479 0 4 1981 O/P 

BARRY MACSWEENEY
Ranter Poetry 48pp A5 Pbk £3.00 ISBN 0 9507479 5 5 1985 O/P 

RHONA McADAM
Old Habits Poetry 64pp A5 pbk £5.00 ISBN 1 871033 21 7 1993 
- co-published with Thistledown Press, Saskatchewan, Canada 
JULES MANN
Pluck Poetry  28pp A5 pamphlet  £3.00/$6.00  ISBN 1 871033 60 8 

BILL MOODY
Solo Hand  Fiction  224pp B format paperback  £6.99  ISBN 1 87033 49 7 O/P 

•         First UK publication
•         First in Moody's series of jazz-based private eye novels featuring former pianist Evan Horne

Fencing Wildness  28 pp A5 pamphlet  £3.00/$6.00  ISBN 1 871033 59 4 1999 

SHARON OLDS
The Matter of This World Poetry 60pp A5 Pbk £4.00 ISBN 0 9507479 8 X 1987 O/P

ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS
The Haunted MirrorThree short stories with an Introduction by Jennifer Bailey 
48pp A5 Pbk £1.50 ISBN 0 9507479 1 2 1984 O/P

ANN SANSOM
Vehicle  Poetry  28pp A5 pamphlet  £3.00/$6.00 ISBN 1 871033 61 6  1999 

PETER SANSOM
More Poems About Love Affairs & Trains  Poetry 20pp A5 pamphlet £1.50 ISBN 0 9507479 7 1 1987 O/P
Talk Sense Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet. Price £2.50/$5.00. ISBN 1 871033 40 3 O/P

JAMES SCHUYLER
Last Poems  Poetry 64pp A5 paperback £7.99 ISBN 1871033519 UK only 

James Schuyler, who died in 1991, was the last and one of the best of the New York Poets. These poems, 
written towards the end of his life, are a fitting testament to his stature as a major twentieth century poet. 

"Last Poems" is extraordinary in its breadth of interest and vision, ranging from knowledgeable and passionate observations of plants and birds to a vibrant portrait of the jazz singer Mildred Bailey, and wry accounts of a visit 
to a shaker village and the death of French actress Simone Signoret. All in Schuyler's inimitable voice. 

JULIE SMITH
New Orleans Mourning  Fiction 412pp B format paperback  £7.99  ISBN 1 871033 45 4  1998 O/P
The Axeman's Jazz  Fiction  380pp B format paperback  £7.99  ISBN 1 871033 57 8  1999 O/P 

• "Cool, complex and penetrating right to the heart" Val McDermid

 

• "A small masterpiece of humour"  Time Out

MANDY SUTTER
Permission to Stare  Poetry 24pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 24 1 1993 O/P

DIANA SYDER
Catching The Light  Poetry 18pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 37 3 1996 

BRIAN THOMPSON
Ladder of Angels Fiction  240pp B format paperback  £7.99/$14.95  ISBN 1 870133 48 9 O/P 

• "Well-written, funny,unexpected, sophisticated and thoroughly enjoyable"  San Francisco Chronicle

The Identification of Species - Second,Enlarged Edition   Poetry 20pp A5 pamphlet £2.00 
ISBN 1 871033 17 9 1992 O/P

The Tide Table Poetry 64pp 224x148mm paperback  £6.99/$13.95  ISBN 1 871033 46 2 1998 

• "Serious,impassioned, keenly perceptive work"  John Burnside

JACKIE WILLS
Black Slingbacks Poetry 16pp A5 pamphlet £1.50 ISBN 1 871033 12 8 1991 O/P

Black Slingbacks- Second, Enlarged Editon   Poetry 20pp A5 pamphlet £2.00 ISBN 1 871033 17 9 1992 O/P

SARAH WOOD
Love Or Something Else  Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £2.50 ISBN 1 871033 30 6 1995 O/P

TAMAR YOSELOFF
Fun House  Poetry 28pp A5 pamphlet £3.00 ISBN 1 871033 28 4 1994 

Sweetheart  Poetry 64pp 224x148mm paperback  £6.99/$13.95  ISBN 1 871033 47 0  1998

• Poetry Book Society Special Commendation
• Winner, Aldebugh Poetry Festival Prize for Best First Collection, 1998

LAST CHANCE FOR A SLOW DANCE

TOP 

It was more than twenty years ago today: a hot mid-seventies summer with stand-pipes on the streets and scorched stubble in the fields. My second-hand green 2CV barely made the trip from Nottingham to Devon, finally cresting the hill and curving down to the low scattering of buildings that was the Arvon Foundation's centre at Totleigh Barton. Until recently, I'd been a school teacher; now, with a few westerns and a brace of Hell's Angels sagas to my name (well, in truth, to other, fictitious, names) I was beginning to think I might be a writer. The week I was about to spend at Totleigh persuaded me I might aspire to being some kind of a poet — and it set me on course to set up Slow Dancer Press and be a publisher. Some kind of a publisher, at least.

On that Arvon course, the first of many, I shared a room with an American writer and environmentalist named Alan Brooks, and it was his enthusiasm and friendship that kick-started me into setting up a press and kept me going for much of the twenty-plus years that it survived. Back in north London, where we were both living at that time, Alan and I hosted a series of informal workshop sessions which were frequented in the main by ex-Arvonites like ourselves, Angie Gilligan and the late Tina Fulker prominent amongst them. From those workshops, it seemed a small but inevitable step to start producing a magazine. After all, we were not finding it easy to get published so what better way was there than to do it ourselves? At least then we could guarantee the work would be well-presented, as opposed to the barely readable duplicated pages in which some of our poems were then circulating. 

The first issue of Slow Dancer magazine appeared in the autumn of 1977 and was subsidised by my earnings from the various series of paperback westerns I was contributing to at the rate of 2,500 words a day. Alan and Tina, Angie and myself aside, there were poems from Brian Patten and Libby Houston, who had been amongst my Arvon tutors. 

Once the magazine was underway, it was but a small if reckless step to the ubiquitous 28 page pamphlet under the Slow Dancer imprint, and from there, more recklessly still, to perfect-bound slim volumes, real books. 

From the first, there was a strong bias towards American poetry, either written by Americans themselves, or by those of us whose work showed, in some respects, an American influence. Alan Brooks was obviously the initial influence here, followed by the American poet and librarian, David Kresh, who was a very active editor for the Press for a good number of years. So, Slow Dancer favoured poems whose language was direct and colloquial, rather than couched in 'poetic diction,' which were narrative rather than purely lyric (and certainly not epic!) and which eschewed references to Greek deities or ancient mythologies. Which is pretty much the bias we've adhered to, although there have always been exceptions and sometimes those exceptions have been amongst the best things we've published. The absolutely singular work of Libby Houston, for instance, from the two poems in that first issue of the magazine through various other publications to her recent magnificent Selected Poems; or of Matthew Caley and Ruth Valentine, who we have been pleased to publish with some regularity, and who are as unlike a typical Slow Dancer author as they are unlike each other or almost anyone else writing in English. 

In the main, we've followed what I think is a clearly defined channel; writers whose work appeared in the magazine on a number of occasions would 'earn' a pamphlet and from there some graduated to a full collection. Most of the work we favoured did not, in truth, arrive, unheralded, through the door in the ubiquitous brown envelope; it was more likely to be recommendation or chance — or, as was the case with Sharon Olds,  dazzling in the pages of another small press magazine. Simon Armitage, then only an unspent penny in Faber & Faber's eye, I heard reading in Huddersfield and knew instantly here was someone I wanted to publish if I could. Lucille Clifton and Barry MacSweeney were, at differing times and in different places, my tutors. Lee Harwood was the poet who, back around the time of that first Arvon course, I most wanted to be. 

But finding good writing, good writers has rarely been a problem, whereas money always has: money and time. And it was the increasing lack of both that led me to announce the closure of the Press in October of 1999. There are a couple of truths at the heart of this: poetry is a minority taste and, with a few exceptions, does not and will never sell in large numbers; and for all the rumoured spread of interest in poetry, most of that interest is reserved for writing the stuff instead of buying it. 

Quite how those hundreds and hundreds of people, who hopefully ship out their sheaves of poems by the sackful, imagine the magazines and small presses they want to print their work are going to keep their heads above water, I don't know. And, of course, neither do they. For the most part, I believe they don't think about it and if they do, they don't care, and if they do care, they don't care enough. And I don't want to hear how poor all poets are, and how they can barely survive without spending their scant income on books and magazines. What? Editors are rich? Publishers are growing fat from publishing poetry? Skip this, do without that and splash out on a couple of pamphlets instead, subscribe to a magazine. If you want someone to read your work and pay for the chance to do so, be prepared to pay to read other people's as well. If everyone who ever submitted poems to Slow Dancer had also bought or subscribed, there would have been no financial problems, no debts, it's as simple as that. 

Except, of course, that it's not. As in so much of life, rightly or wrongly, we have come to expect help from the state, the government, the Arts Council, the Lottery. 

For the first seven or eight years of Slow Dancer's life, I was able to cover the inevitable losses myself, but as our programme grew more ambitious, we joined the queue, filled in our application for a share of the subsidy pot. At first, when we were based in Nottingham and a client of East Midlands Arts, our position was strong and we received pretty much what we needed. Once in London, we were one amongst so many more, and the demands on the resources of the London Arts Board were such that they could not consistently offer us the financial help we needed. Those who live by subsidy, die from lack of it. 

When, some three years ago, Slow Dancer talked to both the London Arts Board and the Literature Department of the Arts Council of England about our plans to move almost exclusively towards book publication and to support our poetry list with a new and, hopefully, more commercial fiction list, they were both strongly supportive. The London Arts Board responded magnificently to our initial request for funding, only to cut us back in the second year to 60% of the minimum we needed. The Arts Council said that we would be exactly the kind of client for whom the about-to-be-launched Lottery-funded Small Publications and Recording Scheme was intended, and encouraged us to apply for an immediate grant towards publicity and marketing, which we did. Unfortunately, the Small Publications and Recording Scheme did not come on line that year, nor the year after, nor the year after that. When it does arrive, like the cavalry, or the U.N., it will be in time to save some and bury the rest. 

The move into trade paperbacks, each with distinctive, often beautiful jackets (Thank you, Jamie Keenan!), had encouraged us back into the arms of the Arts Council-funded distributors, Signature (formerly Password), who took on our poetry titles with enthusiasm but, sadly, failed to match that enthusiasm with sales of sufficient number to enable most books to come close to covering their initial costs. 

Meanwhile, in the cut and thrust of commercial publishing, the big players such as Waterstone's and Borders are taking fewer and fewer chances and moving more towards American levels of returns. So, when in May and June of 1999, the percentage of returns against sales on our fiction titles were 81% and 106% respectively, the game was pretty much up. It just remained to cover our backs as best we could and retreat in sadness and in anger and with as much dignity as we could muster. 

Would I do it again? 

Were I as naive and hopeful as I was back then, yes, every time.