Congratulations to Sarah for making it to the International Rubery Book Award 2018 shortlist – a great achievement for Sarah and for our press. To quote from the Rubery Book Award web site –
How to Grow Matches S. A. Leavesley
Leavesley’s poems have clarity and directness, and she writes with a great eye for significant detail. Matchsticks are “pink tipped bullrushes” in the title poem, for instance, and “Blackpool’s shops are metal secrets” in another lovely piece, First Thing. In Fashion Chains, mannequins are glimpsed in shop windows at night with “chemo flesh revealed/in the glare of strip lighting”, and the “bald realities” of “moon heads”. This poem becomes a sly metaphor for the fashion industry and the way this exploits women via the spurious notion of “true shape”. Her themes are varied: there are ekphrastic poems, political poems, feminist poems, myth based poems, but all have flair, characterised by a contemporary experience which is always convincing and original.
Congratulations to everyone on the shortlist and the winners. See The 2018 Category Winners for more details.
Against the Grain Poetry Press 