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A Lewes Publisher of Poetry and More
Matt Birch • 21 June 2020
An interview with Jeremy Page and Alexandra Loske of The Frogmore Press
Hello, Jeremy Page and Alexandra Loske. Thank you so much for participating. I have some questions for you!
What is The Frogmore Press, and how did it all begin?
JP The Frogmore Press was born as an idea at the Frogmore Tea-Rooms in Folkestone in 1983. The early 80s were a challenging time for young people emerging from higher education and opportunities were limited. A group of us used to congregate at the Frogmore – which had an impressive literary heritage, having been frequented by H G Wells back in the day – on a regular basis. These days the Frogmore Press is based in Lewes. Alexandra came on board about fifteen years ago and has been the Managing Editor since 2010.
I am delighted to have your latest regional anthology – Poetry South East 2020
– here on the shelf now. A third outing, correct? Are there any particular themes present in the work, this time around?
JP
This is the third Poetry South East anthology to be published by the Frogmore Press. Earlier incarnations back in the 70s and early 80s were published by South East Arts. The poems in the collection represent a highly personal selection. I would leave it to readers to decide if there are any recurring themes.
In selecting, what sort of things were you looking for in the poems?
JP
I looked for poems that I felt really needed to be written
In this collection, do you think there is to the fore anything that can be identified as (at least one) English, or even regional style of poetry?
JP
No, I don’t think so. The poems reflect my own preference for poems that are accessible without being facile or obvious, for poems that make the reader do some of the work but not all of it.
I have to mention The Frogmore Papers. This is your bi-annual literary magazine that includes poetry, micro fiction, art and reviews. Tell us more...
JP
The first issue appeared back in May 1983 and we have now reached number 95. Over the decades we must have featured more than a thousand writers from all over the world. Number 100 is scheduled to appear in September 2022.
Several of the poets who were early-published by you have since achieved notable acclaim and reach, haven’t they?
JP
Yes, a large number actually. Most recently Jonathan Edwards was shortlisted for the Forward Best Individual Poem Prize last year with a poem we’d published in the Papers. Early poems by Sophie Hannah appeared in the Papers, and she served as our reviews editor for a few years.
For such a small town, Lewes has a very lively literary scene (Lewes Live Lit, Lewes Speakers Festival, The Needlewriters
and more). Why is that, do you think?
JP
As a town Lewes has many of the characteristics of a place that would appeal to people with an interest in literature and the arts, and events are generally very well-supported. The Lewes Literary Society has brought distinguished writers to the town for public talks for more than seventy years. Leonard Woolf was the Society’s president from 1954 – 1969.
My eye caught the tag line for your online extension of The Frogmore papers, morphrog, compiled by Jeremy Page and Peter Stewart: Poetry in the Extreme. Does that mean more experimental, cult-ish..?
JP
morphrog has always aimed to showcase poetry that is prepared to take risks, even when the risk-taking isn’t an unqualified success. A typical morphrog poem (‘morphrogian’ we call them) – if there is such a thing – is subtly different from the poems we publish in the Papers.
You also award the annual Frogmore Poetry Prize, in which the “two hundred and fifty guineas” is nothing next to “kudos” of joining the select band of winners. I admired adjudicator (and poet) John O’Donoghue’s elegant reflections on the 2019 prize winners, all published in TFP#94. He talks about the many different levels of meaning in the winning poem Our District by Polly Walshe, and elsewhere, about the way in which Robert Hamberger - in focussing on health anxiety - utilizes the restraint required by the sonnet form (Sleeping with Uncertainty) to great effect . I had to look up "Ekphrastic"! It reminded me that a growing awareness of technique - and a willingness to look up a classical reference or two - can only enhance enjoyment of good poetry. In short: poetry is indeed a bit of a club, but everyone is welcome to join. Would you agree?
JP
Yes, I think so. It’s a good idea perhaps to be clear about why you’re writing it, if you’re going to devote time and energy to poetry as a craft. Perhaps the most important consideration is: are you writing to communicate with a readership or just for yourself?
For me, the consistent quality of the cover art to the FP is very pleasing. How does that work? Are the chosen artists each time sent a brief?
JP
Generally artists are given a free hand (no pun intended), but some covers have emerged from a dialogue between editor and artist. We have been very fortunate in the quality and calibre of the artists who have designed our covers.
You are both writers (and academics) yourselves. If I can turn to you Jeremy and your poetry. Your last publication, Stepping Back: Resubmission for the Ordinary Level Examination in Psychogeography
seemed to me a fascinating project. Individually, I found the poems accessible, wry, occasionally melancholic or poignant, and in one case, joyously surreal. These often elegiac poems over twenty five years have dealt with feelings evoked by successive returns to your small coastal home town...
JP
Yes, this was an interesting project. I set out to write a collection of poems exploring my relationship with my home town as it evolved and developed, and discovered I’d already written it. It was then a question of trying to forge a coherent whole from smaller fragments written over time and in different circumstances. I really enjoyed the process – not least because I didn’t actually have to write anything new.
Refreshingly honest... And Alexandra, you possess many interesting professional hats it seems. When not curating the Royal Pavilion, you are a scholar of colour in art, writer of a bestselling guide to the area
and recently promoter of all things lunar. You seem to possess a real enthusiasm for each new subject that you pick up. If there anything new in the pipeline we can look forward to?
AL
I seem to have become an ‘accidental author’, and the last few years have been particularly busy, but I am not a writer of poetry. I have the greatest respect for literary writers, and would never class myself in the same league. At the Frogmore Press, my work is almost exclusively editorial, and I hugely enjoy creating platforms for good contemporary poetry and art. I have edited two anthologies for Frogmore, one on the theme of colour, the other on the Moon, and I embarked on both because I wanted to hear what other people had to say about the themes that were preoccupying me in my academic life. It is also wonderful to have complete control over a publication, a good counterbalance to what happens when you write a book for a big publisher. Both are great experiences, and there is nothing that beats the feeling when you first hold a copy of a book you have written or edited. As for future projects, I am once again busy dealing with new book contracts and am finishing a substantial academic volume on colour in the 19th century for Bloomsbury, but when I have time again for another Frogmore publication, I would perhaps like to resurrect some curious forgotten book from the past, or edit a second anthology of Lewes poets.
That would be great. Of course, poetry lives as much in performance as on the page (I recall some wonderful evenings selling performers’ work at fiction and poetry readings organised by The Needlewriters - Jeremy, you're on the committee). But it is a frustrating time. Have you seen the live performance community adapting at all, with live streaming for instance?
JP
Under lockdown I’ve attended virtual events, some of which have been excellent. However, there’s no denying it’s a different experience.
AL
I would always prefer the real life experience over an online event, but I am hugely grateful that we live at a time when technology allows us to listen to voices and see readers and the audience live in a virtual setting. This lockdown would have been so much harder to bear without online events. And it was still possible to order books. I ordered many, and looked forward to receiving them, so there was still a tactile element to it.
Some might view modern poetry as tending towards the unnecessarily cryptic, or heavily self-referential. This, notwithstanding a post-war counter-tradition of the demotic voice and focus on the everyday, an ‘I’ defined against a political or cultural ‘centre’, even the fusion of poetry with hip-hop in performance. Is there a healthy future for poetry in this country?
AL
Yes, I think all the signs suggest there is. The range and variety of what’s out there is a real plus as far as I’m concerned.
Which recently published poetry collection have you both most enjoyed?
JP
I appreciated the surrealism of Waitress in Fall by Icelandic poet Kristin Omarsdottir, and was pleased to discover the work of J. Brookes via his ‘new & selected’ Hymns Ancient & Modern.
AL
In lockdown I have been reading very little new poetry, with the exception of Clare Best’s superb collection Each Other, but I have read and researched a curious book of poetry by a completely forgotten author, Mary Lloyd. Its title is simply Brighton: A Poem, and she was the first woman who ever published a book about Brighton, in 1809! It is not the greatest poetry from that period by a long way, but it shows the influence of the great Romantic poets and artists of the time. I also found a reassuringly quirky book from 1912 by the theosophist Beatrice Irwin, The Pagan Trinity, which includes poetry arranged by colours. I am not spiritual in any way, but I love reading very experimental writing.
I have enjoyed [ex-Lewesian] Clare Best's output over the years too, and there are four more there to look up, thanks. Frogmore, an old word, originally meant a marshy area, with frogs. As owner of Skylark, I like the natural world connection. How about another of your wonderful themed anthologies - in the style of your Pale Fire: New Writing on the Moon, or Watermarks (on swimming) say – but bringing together poetry, prose and writing that celebrate and reflect upon endangered habitats around these islands?
AL
It's certainly a thought, but our publishing schedule is pretty full for the foreseeable.
Keynote Address to the International Transport & Traffic Innovation Conference 2019
Please forgive my diverting you from the business at hand,
but as we all know
very soon we’ll have driverless cars
governed by the all-encompassing Google Algorithm for Free Flow
(GAFF for short)
Our roundabouts and intersections
will be as frictionless
as a magician’s yanked tablecloth.
The autostrade will be fast lanes of joy,
cities will spin on their rear axles
road rage will be gone with the ghostly wind
of pollution past.
We’ll finally be free of all the tailgaters
the moronic last-second brakers
the texting lane-drifters
the yawning lorry drivers
unsure which side of the road is up or down.
(I have some central reservations about all this, of course.)
But until then it’s freight volumes
speed limits contraflows all the way, and so,
ladies and gentlemen, on your marks
your motorways your autobahnen, let’s go.
© Robin Houghton, from morphrog 19
Walking into a blaze of sunset
whose ribbons litter
a steely winter sky,
I sense the worlds
of many seasons past
come flying by —
feel, in the air
that bites my cheek
and in the special tone
of blue that threatens snow;
and in the moulded trees
and lonely inauspicious crow —
feel something
of every winter gone:
the long walk home
of a twelve year old
in the dusk
of a December afternoon;
and always a new star
guiding, on.
© Jeremy Page, from Stepping Back
I am excited to say that I have just added my own writng to the shelves of Skylark. Meridian: A Walk from Sussex to Yorkshire was published by the excellent Frogmore Press on 12th April 2023, and is available to buy in the shop or by clicking on this link. Here is the media release we put out... Matt Birch has run an independent bookshop and gallery in Lewes, East Sussex since 2006. After years of curating, looking at and selling travel and nature-based memoirs, he developed a strong urge to go on a journey of his own, and in a parallel journey, write it up as a book. The result is the sumptuous, hybrid, and unique Meridian: A Walk from Sussex to Yorkshire. In July 2021, as COVID restrictions were being lifted, he chose his walk. Guided by the Greenwich Meridian, which passed through his hometown, the route was determined by an abstract concept rather than natural features and completed in stages over four seasons. This book invites you to join him on his internal and external journey. Reflecting the rhythm of a long walk, his ‘snap shots’ alternate with short pieces of writing: writing that meanders through history, politics, nature, literature, music, etymology, prose and poetry as he follows this line cutting through a cross-section of England. An insightful and intriguing, personal and whimsical exploration of the places encountered between two little-known coastal towns, and of what the experience ultimately meant for the author. Within the pages, there is a real synergy between the large format photographs, and their associated, short essays. The book is both a descriptor of some typical eastern English landscapes (and a selection of the people, flora and fauna that they support), and a wider celebration of the rich knowledge-reward that a long journey across this land can gift the reasonably curious and observant walker. Chance incidents on the walk are frequently viewed through a wryly humorous lens. At other times, the reader is led into lively expositions on a range of subjects, from Daniel Defoe’s account of a famously wild Cambridgeshire fair, to the joys of wild swimming (and increasing limitations on it); from the troubling history of the Fennish who tried to resist the drainage of their lands to the pleasures of encountering British nature, whether a day-glo Spindle tree or those magnificent returning birds of prey, red kites. Through prose, poems and pictures, the reader will visit eerily abandoned canals, allotments with mermaid scarecrows, a strange tunnel under the Thames, the top deck of a bus full of teenagers, and the fastest-eroding coastline in Britain. In the Afterword, the author reflects back on the value of the walk. He appreciates the self-reflective opportunity provided by a long-walk experience, and how this journey allowed him to realise with enhanced clarity what really matters in his own life.
I met Helen, a Sussex print-maker, at Lewes Station and we took the train east one stop to Glynde for our planned late summer walk up to Mount Caburn, on the south side of Cliffe Hill. I have had the pleasure of showing Helen's distinctive south downs woodcuts in Skylark for over a decade, and having created scores of prints in the same eye-catching style, she is a trusted artist of the local landscape, in a sense. I was looking forward to hearing more about Helen's inspiration and artistic processes. Being in situ was just great, as I could observe Helen stopping to make initial sketches, and talk about how she saw the landscape around her. The visibility was good, providing a welcome drawing opportunity after a somewhat murky early summer. As fair weather clouds passed overhead, I asked her about the long and striking curls and flow lines she uses to depict clouds (or wind currents?) in her work. She explained that in the 90s she had lived and worked for a time in Kerala and had been interested in local decorative styles which inspired her to develop her own "somewhat swirly!" style in her art at the time. On returning to the UK, she had a yen to produce landscape work from life and initially created collage-based downland work, with quite literal skyscapes. Then, readying for an Open House exhibition she tried out the new signature sky-stylisation for a view of Devil's Dyke, and the woodcut print in question quickly sold in all 15 editions, a huge encouragement! As we ascended the second field, we noted the attractive round bales scattered around us. We now had some elevation down into the wide valley and across to the far Kingston and Firle ridges, both of which have featured in popular prints by Helen. It was amazing how even a few steps up, down or to the side quickly changed the composition of the view, not least the nearer hillside shapes. Here, a pencil sketch was quickly produced, looking up to folds in the hillside, scrub and trees to the top of Caburn. This is always the start point, never photos, and usually determines the actual size of the final print, the sketch being traced, flipped and transferred to a Japanese Shina Ply wood block with carbon paper. I noted that the hill incline was subtly enhanced, another common signature of the work. To me, this seems to work as a mirror to the non-literal skies: a dreamy, heightened, generous, sublime interpretation of a risen old seabed, carved into whalebacks and dry coombes, and long farmed.
Karen Smith, Julia Webb, Jackie Wills and Emily Bell – Thursday 15th April 2021 Needlewriters is going to be online now until the autumn, when we’re hoping to be back at the John Harvey Tavern… but of course, that’s to be confirmed. Meanwhile our next event is on Thursday 15th April and we’re delighted to be welcoming Karen Smith (poetry), Julia Webb (poetry), Jackie Wills (prose and/or poetry) and Emily Bell (prose). Doors open at 6.20pm and readings begin at 6.30pm. The event is free to attend but please do book in advance. If you feel able, we would be very grateful for any help you can offer us by way of a donation and you will have that option when you register. Please register here on the Eventbrite page. We look forward to seeing you! Karen Smith is a wild swimming addict, librarian and poet from Uckfield, East Sussex. Since 2018, she’s been collaborating with Kin’d & Kin’d, an Ecopoetry collective of writers and artists. Her pamphlet Schistwas published in 2019 as part of the Laureate’s Choice Series and she is currently working on a hybrid text about water. Julia Webb is a writer, teacher and artist living in Norwich. She is a poetry editor for Lighthouse. In 2011 she won the Poetry Society’s Stanza competition and in 2018 she won the Battered Moon poetry competition. She has two poetry collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016) and Threat (2019). She is currently working towards her third collection. Jackie Wills has been a journalist, editor and writing tutor but none exclusively. She’s written six collections, short stories and a handbook on running workshops. She’s run several reading groups, including for the Child and Adolescent Mental Heath Service on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund. Her most recent collection is A Friable Earth (Arc Publications 2019). Jackie has had an allotment for more than 20 years and has worked with the Surrey Hills AONB, Gatton House, the Garden Museum and RHS at Wisley. She’s written about her reading and writing life for Smith Doorstop – On Poetry – will be published next year. Emily Bell is a writer of prose and poetry and a research student at the University of Brighton. She is currently working on her PhD, a ficto-critical thesis exploring creative processes in literature and visual art, centred on the works of Emily Brontë. Image: Sorrell Kinley, Blackmore Vale, Dorset
An evening with Kazuo Ishiguro 23 March 2021 7 p. m. Online Join us for an evening with the Nobel Prize winning author, Kazuo Ishiguro to celebrate the publication of his stunning new novel, Klara and the Sun. Entrance to the event is free when you buy Klara and the Sun from us via Skylark's page on Bookshop.org here Once you have purchased the book, you will be emailed an invitation to the event on the day - save the date in the meantime via this link http://bit.ly/BSOKlaraEvent Klara and the Sun From the bestselling and Nobel Prize-winning author of Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day, a stunning new novel that asks: what does it mean to love? This is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change for ever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. ‘A masterpiece of great beauty, meticulous control and, as ever, clear, simple prose.’ Sunday Times ‘This is a novel for fans of Never Let Me Go, with which it shares a DNA of emotional openness, the quality of letting us see ourselves from the outside, and a vision of humanity which - while not exactly optimistic - is tender, touching and true.’ The Times ‘There is something so steady and beautiful about the way Klara is always approaching connection, like a Zeno's arrow of the heart. People will absolutely love this book, in part because it enacts the way we learn how to love.’ Anne Enright, Guardian ‘Another masterpiece, a work that makes us feel afresh the beauty and fragility of our humanity.’ Alex Preston, Observer Kazuo Ishiguro Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His eight works of fiction have earned him many awards and honours around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. His work has been translated into over fifty languages. The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go were made into acclaimed films. Ishiguro also writes screenplays and song lyrics. He lives in London with his wife and daughter. Nic Bottomley - event chair Nic Bottomley set up the award-winning Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath with his wife Juliette in 2006 . Nic is also a past President and current Executive Chair of the Booksellers Association of UK and Ireland.
There is a long tradition of nature and travel writing in this isles, from beautifully intense accounts of particular species ( The Peregrine, J A Baker) to heart-felt, almost mystical reflections on certain adored landscapes, such as The Cairngorms ( The Living Mountain, Nan Shepherd). I took a look along Skylark's non-fiction shelves and picked out some personal favourites that celebrate the human and natural history of particular regions of England (specifically) through diversely-styled but always fine writing. First up, published in 2017, The Old Weird Albion is by Justin Hopper and published by Penned in the Margins. A native of the US, but now a resident of Constable country on the Essex/Suffolk border, Justin turns his gaze south, to the very region I call home, the South Downs. The author weaves together an account of a walking journey along the South Downs Way from Winchester to Eastbourne, with memories, myths and histories of the landscape as told to him by a cast of eccentrics and visionaries he meets along the way. He partners this with some detective work regarding the story of his own grandmother in Sussex, and apposite digressions into related subjects including ecotherapy and ancient chalk figures. An engaging styling is the use of italicised indicators of each page's subject matter penned, well, in the margins. This is "a poetic essay interrogating the high, haunted landscape of the English south".
I took a high summer bicycle-and-train trip westards from Lewes to the village of Hassocks. Above the tracks, cirrocumulus and cumulus clouds seemed stopped in the sky, as though painted. The ridge of the South Downs lay close to the south, a natural barrier to the very different energy of Brighton. Hassocks used to consist of just a few cottages until the arrival of the Brighton-London railway, and is now quite sizeable. The name derives from the Old English 'hassuc' via Middle English 'hassok', meaning clump of grass or vegetation. I didn't have time to explore whether the local fields were still noticeably tuffet-y, where not now built upon, and with the air heavy with buddleia instead sought out a village-edge address. I met Ashley in the garden of his West Sussex home (complete with a lounging cat and lovely pond), and after coffee was shown the studio he built in 2016, under the ash tree that gives his company it's current name. The spacious workspace featured three etching presses. What most catches the eye is a beautiful 1930s GEM proofing press made in Manchester, in royal blue. Alongside are two more modern presses which, as Ashley conceded, are for most purposes more practical! Hanging up to dry, ten or so sheets with the first applied print colour - a pale stoney tone - from a new lino etching featuring a pair of greater spotted woodpeckers (birds in natural surroundings are a recurring motif in Ashley's work). This will be one half of a diptych with the other print being a nuthatch. Both will be a six colour reduction print, finished off with an embossed Kew Gardens greenhouse running through them.
During the temporary closure of The Needlemakers along with most high street shops this spring, there has been the opportunity for both a revamp of the physical shop, and the creation of a new website. I feel our new on-line presence now better reflects what we are about. And of course, it provides a means to shop directly, 24/7! We are also glad to think that we can still serve those customers who are unable to visit for any reason. Over time, I also look forward to creating this "Skylog": occasional writings and interviews that explore our Sussex setting. I hope to travel out and meet some of the creative folk the shop has links with in their natural habitats or work places. A couple of the print makers have already said that they would be very happy for me to visit their workshops, whether down in raffish Brighton or up in the beautifully wooded Weald. I have an associated yen to visit local places that are the subjects of particular pieces of work... Whatever transpires, Sussex is so rich in history and countryside I am sure I will find plenty of excuses to take trips out of the shop. Watch this online journal space!