The Poetry Book Society (PBS) is delighted to announce that independent presses are leading the way in the PBS Winter 2019 Selections. For the first time, emerging Scottish publisher Blue Diode Press has been awarded the prestigious PBS Winter Choice for its second-ever publication Split by the Scotland-based Mexican poet Juana Adcock. The Winter Recommendations will be Charlotte Ansell, Deluge (flipped eye); Kwame Dawes and John Kinsella, Tangling with the Epic (Peepal Tree Press); Denise Riley, Selected Poems (Picador); Zoë Skoulding, Footnotes to Water (Seren); Special Commendation to Charlotte Mew, Selected Poetry and Prose, edited by Julia Copus (Faber); The PBS Wild Card goes to Mimi Khalvati, Afterwardness (Carcanet) and Translation Choice Esther Dischereit, Sometimes a Single Leaf (Arc publications).
The PBS Winter 2019 Selections celebrate the most diverse range of independent publishers yet, including flipped eye, Peepal Tree Press, Carcanet, Seren and Arc. Female poets dominate the list in a fitting tie-in with the PBS & Mslexia Women’s Poetry Prizes, which close on the 16th September.
The current PBS Book Selectors Sandeep Parmar and Vidyan Ravinthiran have an incredible track record of spotting prize-winning poets ahead of the crowds to deliver to the global PBS poetry community. Recent PBS Selections have included the electrifying performer and d/Deaf poet Raymond Antrobus and US Black Lives Matter legend Jericho Brown. Poetry Book Society Members will receive copies of Juana Adcock’s Split and the new-look PBS Bulletin magazine, packed full of poems and exclusive interviews, in November ahead of the high street bookshops.
The diversity of recent PBS Selections is testament to the renewed vitality of the PBS and our commitment to celebrating the very best new poetry in all forms from a wide range of established and emerging publishers. Watch this space for the next big thing, our Selectors have their fingers firmly on the poetry pulse! - Alice Kate Mullen, PBS Manager
Choosing books for PBS members over the past two years has made it crystal clear where the risks are being taken in poetry - to expand the language and to forge new forms. My fellow co-selector and I were joyfully overwhelmed every quarter by the exciting work being done by independent, small presses and in particular by women and poets of colour. It has been hugely gratifying to bring much-deserved attention to all these incredible works, including the latest PBS Choice Split by Juana Adcock, from the very new press Blue Diode. Split raises the stakes for poetry with its high imagination, its linguistic and poetic experimentalism and the gravity of its insights. In another time it is a book that might well have been overlooked were it not for the courage of editors and readers increasingly driven by innovation and intellectual generosity.
- Sandeep Parmar, PBS Book Selector
As a small, unfunded Scottish publisher, I was surprised and delighted when I heard Split was the PBS Choice. It was also great to know that an uncompromising, non-mainstream, debut collection can have its quality recognised in this way. - Rob MacKenzie, Blue Diode Press
It’s a huge and very unexpected honour to find myself on a list that includes so many of my heroes, and it will no doubt be a leg-up on my strange and often quite solitary writing path.” - Juana Adcock, PBS Winter Choice
Join our global poetry community today to support a wide range of poets and publishers both big and small and hear about the best new poetry books ahead of the crowds. Annual PBS Full Membership is only £55, that's the equivalent of £4.58 a month for 4 books, 4 magazines, access to our lively poetry comunnity, nationwide events and 25% off all books all year around!