At the end of a huge publishing year for VERVE and the beginning of yet another one, Verve Poetry Press Founder and Editor Stuart Bartholomew reflects on 2021 and what exciting things may be coming soon…
LOOKING BACK...
Well phew! What a year 2021 for VERVE Poetry Press. With no festival to distract us (don’t worry, we are back in Feb 22) it was a time to concentrate on our publishing side. While live events weren’t really an option most of the time, which harmed our ability to launch books properly, we did our best to run Zoom launches where possible (some incredible evenings were had on that most intimate of settings!) and even tried our hand at live streaming a multipoet event and chat!
In 2021, our publishing programme was part-funded by Arts Council England. This allowed us for the first time to employ help with our marketing – Kibriya Mehrban has done a stunning job blogging, producing wonderful monthly newsletters that read like magazines, and helping us to get our books out there when events haven’t been an option. She has made such a difference and will continue to do so this year too!
With our funding, we were able to have our biggest year of publishing yet! We had our second open submissions window for full collections only in March (over 400 manuscripts submitted 🤯) and produced a wonderful season of collections and pamphlets of every stamp.
A highlight among many has to be Rushika Wick’s glorious debut Afterlife As Trash which was highly commended at the Forwards, reviewed in Poetry Review and was featured in Poem of the Week in The Telegraph. But we are incredibly proud of all the books we published in 2021.
LOOKING FORWARD...
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Catherine Gander - Matches [Preorder - Out Feb 24] (Copy)
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Katherine Moss - The Still Point [Out Now!]
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Kayla Martell Feldman - Same Story [Out Now!]
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Lexia Tomlinson - Sankofa [Out Now!]
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Sharena Lee Satti - Shhhhhhhh [Out Now!]
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Rona Cran - I Remember Kim [Out Now!]
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Ellora Sutton - Artisanal Slush [Out Now!]
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Kym Deyn - Dionysia [Out Now!]
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Jemima Hughes - Into The Ordinary [2023]
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Ana Seferovic - MATERINA [2023]
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Evrah Rose - Define Hope [Out Now!]
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WHERE ELSE: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology [2023]
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Dide - Making Sense [2023]
We will open submissions once again, this time in May, and will be accepting finished full collection and pamphlet length manuscripts, to search for that handful of books that will make our 2023 season sing… we can’t wait to see what we are sent!
We have our sister festival returning, featuring many of our Press poets and many, many others. After that, we are partnering with the BBC on this year’s Birmingham-based Contains Strong Language Festival in September which will be epic!
We hope that 2022 will see us able to get our poets out and about to readings and launch events much more than last year, and even have plans for a bi-monthly bi-city monthly night with open mic! Keep your ears to the ground for all our news!
I feel that we are beginning to establish ourselves as a press to watch and a champion of variety and diversity as well as excellence in poetry. We are working hard to be an indie poetry press worthy of the name. We thank you for all your support!
So there you have it! (Almost) everything you need to know about submitting to Verve Poetry Press in one place. If you or anyone you know is interested, be sure to follow us on socials for all the updates and get those manuscripts ready!
