Books published by Hedgehog Poetry Press

The “chengyu”, Mandarin Chinese for idiom, condenses a feeling, sentence and more often than not a story into four characters. Similarly, each of Leung’s poems is a cross-section; aiming to capture a slice of the world, or a relationship and presenting them to the reader as representations of the whole.Each of the poems in chengyu: chinoiserie are literal translations or re-interpretations of a Chinese idiom, referencing the duality of identity in Leung’s bilingual and cross-cultural upbringing; each idiom and poem a succinct summary of an important relationship, person or part of her life. The meaning of “chinoiserie” is subverted in her poems as these idioms reimagined as English poems are neither particularly “chinese-esque” or “un-chinese-esque”, though the author is very much fully Chinese herself. This is done because the Asian author writing in English does not have the obligation to only strictly write about Orientalist themes, nor should they avoid writing about their culture should they have something they wish to express.The author’s first collection is an earnest exploration into the themes of young love and coming-of-age, which are so often looked-down upon in poetry as immature and unimportant. Leung also explores the meaning of sociocultural as well as personal identity through a world of visuals and objects. 

The Garden/er is a long poem which contains a sequence of elegies. It follows a year in a garden, month by month, examining flora and fauna, and listening to the author’s experiences and reactions to her father’s death. Anger and bewilderment and loss give way to an appreciation of the rhythms of the natural world.

In his debut pamphlet, Micha┼é Choi┼äski explores human physicality in various religious, social and somatic contexts. The bodies featured in the ten poems that constitute Gifts Without Wrapping become objects of poetic reflection conducted with an authentic, searching voice, marked by restlessness and determination. In this selection of poems, as Choi┼äski’s invasive “unwrapping” of the carnal progresses, his Polish background becomes an important factor of his poetic meditations, adding to their multiversity. Gifts Without Wrapping is a winner of White Label Deux competition organized by the Hedgehog Press.

Everything sings in these pages, from birds to buildings who remember the children who once lived there. The work is a soundtrack of ghosts, a world of recovery where the dead sit on deckchairs and the living compare themselves to chalk outlines on the pavement. Powerful, startling, and utterly original these prose poems have a pulse. Hardwick is a master of the form. Angela Readman  Poems in The Lithium Codex shape pages of a book of melancholy; gently fabricated soft prose blocks of longings and losings; lyric attempts – doomed to fail but, as failure, always also positively self-contained – to home in on and perhaps also to shrink from, or simply to understand, the painful distance or chasm agape between self and world, I and other, psyche and language, through beautiful, thoughtful, fragile phenomenological laments. Memoryscapes, mindscapes, drifting, to-ing and fro-ing in private and public time, without a real desire for origo or destination, or even authorship and/or companionship, always torn by tension of phobia and philia, processing the process of being, remembering, writing itself. Ágnes Lehóczky While each poem of The Lithium Codex gives the impression of being improvised, what impresses is how skilfully the effects are realised. It is not just the inventiveness of the writing but its precision. These prose poems have the authority of a classic.  David Mark Williams   

 ‘The Blue Hour is a period of morning and evening twilight when  the sun is below the horizon colouring the sky a deep blue. The poems   in this enchanting and magical collection reflect upon the mysteries, the joys and the       sorrows of human existence from both a personal and a universal perspective.  It is a journey that we all share in common, and these are poems that chart our shared       experience from dawn to sunset in a celebratory and life-affirming way.’  ‘His work is breathtaking, so very human and accessible’- Heidi Nightengale, Publisher & Editor at Clare Songbirds Publishing House‘In the real way of a conversation that starts light and then dives deep Yates draws us into topics of life and death, our connectedness to the earth, the wonder of the ocean, our past. He surprises with some spectacular unexpected endings. Poems with what I have called‘Slap upside the head’ last lines. Each a gem, shining stone or shell shard gleaned from       a winter beach during the long wait for spring. Collect one yourself.’- Rachael Z. Ikins, Associate Editor, Clare Songbirds Publishing House. 

If, as it has been said, every poem is a love poem to something, then each of the poems in Falling Outside Eden explores a different facet of love itself. From the intangible anticipation of beginnings to resolutions tempered by time, this collection follows the footsteps of a love affair through elation, betrayal, and forgiveness.Structured in four sections, each comprised of five poems with an introductory quatrain, the pamphlet as a whole evokes the outline of a relationship filled with love and loss, inviting readers to inhabit the spaces in between. Melissa Fu grew up in Northern New Mexico and moved to Cambridge, UK in 2006.With backgrounds in physics and English, she spent many years working in education, both as a teacher and a curriculum consultant. Melissa was the regional winner of the Words and Women 2016 Prose Competition and was a 2017 Apprentice with the London-based Word Factory. In 2018/2019, she was the David TK Wong Fellow at the University of East Anglia. Her writing has appeared in several publications including Bare Fiction, The Lonely Crowd, International Literature Showcase, Envoi and A Restricted View from Under the Hedge. “A beautifully crafted, fully-fledged, mature piece of work. Each poem sings off the page in its own right, but together they form a pleasing and coherent whole with a strong, consistent voice.” - Sue Burge, author of Lumière and In the Kingdom of Shadows

''Saudade' captures the zeitgeist of an age seduced by social media with its images of idealised lives. Many of the characters in Nigel Kent's first collection experience a deep sense of dissatisfaction and an irreconcilable longing for someone or something that they have either lost or never had. Sometimes this is because of unrealistic expectations, sometimes because of factors outside their control and sometimes because they have simply made wrong choices or decisions. He movingly conveys their yearning in poems that will 'linger, linger, linger'.Nigel Kent's intimate poems provide a quiet mouthpiece for the disenchanted examining what it is to be human with all its frailties. They urge us to linger on the ineluctable question of what it is that makes life complete. Maggie Sawkins, author of 'Zones of Avoidance' and Winner of Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry, 2013.

A collection of poetry from one of the UK's more important new voices. 'Woodworm' showcases the talent that Matt Duggan has already hinted at with a selection of chapbooks, in an expansive and vital collection of bleeding edge poetry. This is one you genuinely can't afford to miss.

“Kristin Garth’s work is a vulnerable piece of writing, connected with hybrid memoirs. It is filled with sonnets upon sonnets of language that is precise, detailed, and profound—her words hitting us like punches in the guts. The poems in this book are as naked as the clothes Garth removes as a stripper; layer upon layer of pain, abuse, and self-worthlessness echo in the imagery, yet there is a constant flash of light throughout the darkness.Candy Cigarette is a brave and bold book which reveals Garth’s poetic ability to capture a particular time of her life and to step back to reflect upon the effect it had; Garth conveys this dark period of hers with rhymes and rhythm. Her style and voice make the reader delve into the seedy strip clubs with her; to feel the eyes of her clients on her; and to perceive the essence of what sex feels like without any connections.Kristin Garth has a voice of a woman who has a real story to tell. It’s not make believe, it is raw, and uncut. Cross your legs and read this intimate tale of an American woman’s journey into the dark underworld, and how she made it out alive.”- Christina Strigas, Love & Vodka 

Shakespeare for Sociopaths is a collection of sociopathic characters commented on, caged in the Shakespearean sonnet form.  My whole life I’ve been immersed in a milieu of dark characters — in my bed, in my head, in pop culture, books.  This book represents the union of two twin passions/obsessions of mine: the Shakespearean sonnet form and villainous characters.  Shakespeare himself was certainly fascinated with these kinds of characters and housed many such in his tomes from the Macbeths to Iago in Othello.  I follow in his tradition with my own Garthian flourishes like internal rhyme and killer couplets. This poetic form is an obsession to me, and I stalk it like a sociopath.  Open this book and visit the villains.  They’re caged.  You’re safe with me. - Kristin Garth

Amy Alexander's story of the Kettle Daughter, beautifully created in a running series of artwork and poetry. Merging digital art with poetry, Amy took a single artwork and wrote a poem based upon it. From there, she alternated letting her own inspiration inspire her again and again until the story of the Kettle Daughter was rightly told."Alexander carefully mines her nearly mystical youth filled with spectres and sanctuaries, prayers and paths through frozen woods for just those intimate details that make her writing both swift and sparse and yet relatable and evocative of some universal coming of age we all experience surrounded by people and places demanding some kind of magic to fully understand. Kettle Daughter feels like a grand campfire tale, an emotional epic of the heart spoken in small whispers like embers dancing with a crackling flame." - Jeffrey Roedel 

Karen Dennison's 'The Paper House' is a stunning collection from one of Britain's finest new voices.Karen Dennison's first collection Counting Rain was published by Indigo Dreams in 2012. Karen is editor, designer and publisher of Book of Sand, Blueshift and Free-fall, a series of pamphlets featuring the work of artists and poets. She co-edits and designs for Against the Grain Poetry Press.

The Rhyme of the Reddleman’s Daughter originated from a story the poet’s four-year-old daughter told him in her bath… “I’ll tell a story from my mouth …” her term for an oral story rather than one read from a book.Book-ended with the idea of the Reddleman or Raddleman (a liminal figure who would travel the chalk hills marking sheep with a red dye at pairing time), the ballad is rooted in the landscape, flora and fauna of the South Downs.The ballad form became the most fitting way of uniting form and content, and like Songs of Innocence and Experience it is written for both adults and children.

The third edition of this vibrant poetry magazine showcases some of the finest and most original voices in contemporary poetry todayThe full line-up for the magazine is:Poetry : Jeremy Reed Anna Saunders Christopher Levenson Mark Goodwin Raine Geoghegan Fred D'Aguiar Lucía Orellana Damacela Alison Jones Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon John F. Deane Sheenagh Pugh Andy Brown Debjani Chatterjee Arundhathi Subramaniam Hannah Brockbank Abegail Morley C.C. Russell Scarlett Ward Kristin Garth Pippa Little Charles Wilkinson Jen Rouse Maggie Mackay Matt Duggan Joan Lennon Natalie Crick Jennie E. Owen Imogen Forster Andrew Greig Elaine Royle Paul Waring Penelope Shuttle Peter J. King Geoff Hattersley Cheryl Pearson Deb Scudder Julian Turner Helen Farish Jacqueline SaphraArticles Helen Calcutt Talking to Victoria Richards David Mark Williams Reading Brian Patten Luke Haines Smash The System Amy Alexander Talking to Kristin Garth & Tianna Hansen Genya Johnson Poetry on the Underground Matt Duggan A Journey Across The Pond Annie Maclean Reading J.O Morgan Martin Malone Mr Willett's Summertime Hannah Brockbank Bloodlines Zack Dicks Gloucester Poetry Festival Moose Allain Postcards From The Hedge

"What can I say about a collection featuring a singing and dancing papaya, a pesky street character known as Noman, a Vaudeville mime artist who performs in an A road lay-by and a Flat Earth advocate, to mention only a few? When people put me on the spot and ask me what my poems are about, I am usually lost for words. But then I am often lost for words. Conversation isn't really my thing. Perhaps that's why I write poems in the first place. Papaya Fantasia is a bus journey, it's a variety show, a long wave broadcast, a comedy-horror B film and a cut-up autobiography."- David Mark Williams

'Apple Water' is a small collection of poems and short prose based on Raine's Romany family who amongst other things picked fruit, vegetables and hops in both Herefordshire and Kent. Many of these poems have been inspired by actual events, personal stories and photographs, as well as the inclusion of 'found' words which help to bring the characters to life. Raine uses Romani language (jib) to add authenticity to the life of the Travelling people and has woven it into the collection not only to honour these folk but to create new and innovative forms of poetry, combining both the old and new."These are poems of Roma memory and survival brought to life through beguiling lyric and dramatic telling. They bring a way of living, of thinking, listening, and seeing, into immediate and natural focus."- David Morley, winner of the Ted Hughes Award for New Poetry

Sue Burge is a poet and freelance creative writing and film studies tutor based in North Norfolk. Lumière was written during a residency in Paris. This residency allowed Sue to combine her three great passions - Paris, poetry and the cinema in order to create a unique poetic response to the city's cinematic legacy.