The Seventh Quarry - Swansea Poetry Magazine's Interests
General
The publisher of quality poetry from Wales and beyond. The organiser of enjoyable poetry events (sometimes with singers/musicians)with QUARRY partner Stanley H. Barkan, publisher,
CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS, New York.
The first in May 2006, at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, featured a visit by American poet Stanley H. Barkan.
American poets Tino Villanueva, Beverly Matherne, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Laura Boss, Robin Metz and John Dotson have followed in Stanley's footsteps, performing at QUARRY events at the Centre and at The Boathouse, Laugharne, in 2007 and 2008.
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New York's Vince Clemente, who is QUARRY Consultant Editor: America, was awarded the WALT WHITMAN BIRTHPLACE U.S.A. POET OF THE YEAR AWARD 2007.
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In March 2008 THE SEVENTH QUARRY Editor Peter Thabit Jones toured America, with Aeronwy Thomas, poet and daughter of Dylan Thomas, on the DYLAN THOMAS TRIBUTE TOUR, organised by Stanley H. Barkan, in consultation with Vince Clemente, QUARRY Consultant Editor: America.
Peter and Aeronwy read their own poetry and gave talks on Dylan Thomas at many venues, including Wellesley College, Knox College, Iowa International Writers Workshop, Walt Whitman Birthplace, University of Michigan, University of Colorado, Salem State College, Chicago Vitalist Theatre, California's Monterey College, The Grolier Bookshop in Boston, New York's National Arts and Film Club, Long Island's The North Sea Poetry Scene, the Wales International Center in New York, The White Horse Tavern in New York, Long Island's Stevenson Academy, The Poetry Center at Passaic Community College in New Jersey, the Mid-Manhattan Library, New York Public Library, and many more.
Publicity materials, DVDs and photos of the Tour will be permanently archived at the Mid-Manhattan Library, New York, the Wales International Center, New York, and at Rochester University, New York
In May 2008 Peter was commissioned (with Aeronwy Thomas) by the Wales International Center in New York to write the first-ever WALKING GUIDE OF DYLAN THOMAS'S PLACES IN GREENWICH VILLAGE, NEW YORK.
VISIT: www.walesworldnation.com
PODCAST:www.dylanthomaswalkingtourmp3.com.
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NEW PUBLICATION: A 400 page bilingual collection (English/Romanian), WHISPERS OF THE SOUL, featuring poems by Peter and New York’s Vince Clemente, translated by Dr. Olimpia Iacob,published by EDITURA FUNDATIEI POEZIA IASI, Romania, in March 2009.
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Peter was invited to participate in the 2008 International Poetry Festival in Satu Mare, Romania. The Festival took place from 20th to 25th October, 2008. Peter read his own poetry, which has also been translated into Romanian by Dr. Olimpia Iacob, and gave a talk on Dylan Thomas. PLEASE SEE PHOTOS.
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A RECORDING OF A BRIEF SECTION OF UNDER MILK WOOD AND A VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH THE SOUTH WALES EVENING POST
Peter has recorded a brief section of the the opening of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood for the South Wales
Evening Post newspaper's popular website devoted to Dylan Thomas.
Peter was recorded at the historic BBC studios in Swansea, where Dylan Thomas and the Welsh actor Richard Burton both made recordings.
Peter was also interviewed (on video) by the Post journalist and Web Editor Paul Turner. The recording and the interview can be accessed at :
Peter has been invited back to America in April and May 2009. In April he will be the guest of the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, for a week of events at a World Conference.
In May he will carry out a series of poetry readings and literary talks in New York, where he will be hosted by Professor Sultan Catto of City University of New York, The Graduate Center, and his American publisher Stanley H. Barkan.
Whilst in New York he will also participate in a new project with Stanley, who is planning to produce a dvd based around the popular Walking Guide of Dylan Thomas’s Greenwich Village, written by Peter and Aeronwy Thomas, Dylan’s daughter, which was commissioned by Catrin Brace of the Wales International Center, New York in May 2008.
Peter will produce a narrative contribution and Swansea singer-songwriter Terry Clarke, a frequent participant at The Seventh Quarry/Cross-Cultural Communications Visiting Poets Events, will sing original songs and compose the incidental music.
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Spring 2008: the first publication in a (commissioned) Series called POET TO POET, co-published in America and the U.K. by THE SEVENTH QUARRY Swansea Poetry Magazine and Cross-Cultural Communications, New York. The publications will be 48 pages and will feature two poets: one British and one non-British.
The first, POET TO POET#1: BRIDGING THE WATERS -SWANSEA TO SAG HARBOR by Vince Clemente and Peter Thabit Jones, was published in March 2008.
The aim is to promote THE SEVENTH QUARRY PRESS beyond the magazine and to continue its international focus, supported by Cross-Cultural Communications.
Cross-Cultural Communications, since its inception in 1971, has published 350 titles in 50 different languages. Pablo Neruda, Allen Ginsberg, Isaac Asimov, and the late, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Stanley Kunitz, a friend of Stanley H. Barkan’s,are among the distinguished writers published by him.
For 25 years, Stanley H. Barkan directed the International Literary Arts Festival, which, from 1990-1991, included the Reading Series at the United Nations Dag Hammerskjold Center in New York. In 1996, he received the prestigious Poor Richard's Award “for a quarter century of high quality publishing” from
the Small Press Center, New York.
Music
QUARRY EVENTS performers: singer/songwriter Terry Clarke
and Celtic folk-singer Lorraine King.
Books
The books and magazines submitted for the Books and Magazines page (mainly poetry books and poetry magazines).
The Seventh Quarry - Swansea Poetry Magazine's Details
The Seventh Quarry - Swansea Poetry Magazine's Blurbs
About me: THE SEVENTH QUARRY Swansea Poetry Magazine
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THE SEVENTH QUARRY Swansea Poetry Magazine aims to publish quality poems from around the world. Poets from the U.K., America, Argentina, Canada, Israel, Spain, Catalonia, Czech Republic, Serbia, and Romania have already appeared in its pages. New York’s Vince Clemente, as the magazine’s Consultant Editor: America, ensures a steady stream of American poets.
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Each issue features a Poet Profile, a batch of pages given over to a chosen poet. The policy is to try to alternate between a British poet and a non-British poet. There is also a Books and Magazines page, which provides details and brief comments on received publications.
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The magazine has recently become a cooperating partner with CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS PUBLISHERS, New York. The partnership has already contributed to the magazine being displayed at several prestigious literary events in America and the publication in QUARRY of work by the late, Pulitzer prize-winner, American Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz.
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The magazine has also been contracted to THE POETRY LIBRARY'S (Royal Festival Hall, London) prestigious digitisation project, which will ensure copies of the magazine are featured on its very popular website: regarded by many as the best source for poetry in the U.K. QUARRY was featured in THE GUARDIAN, one of Britain’s leading daily newspapers, in April 2006. It was awarded SECOND BEST SMALL PRESS MAGAZINE IN THE U.K. 2006 by PURPLE PATCH (U.K.).
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The Editor also organises THE SEVENTH QUARRY PRESENTS poetry evenings. The first, at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, featured a visit by American poet Stanley H. Barkan.
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The magazine appears twice a year, in January and July. It costs £3.50 per issue or £7 for a year’s subscription (two copies). $10 and $20 for USA subscribers.
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EDITOR:
PETER THABIT JONES
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CONSULTING EDITOR, AMERICA:
VINCE CLEMENTE
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ISSN 1745-2236
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DAN-Y-BRYN, 74 CWM LEVEL ROAD, BRYNHYFRYD, SWANSEA SA5 9DY,
WALES, GREAT BRITAIN
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SUBMISSION: NO MORE THAN FOUR POEMS (NO LONG POEMS, PLEASE)
S.A.E. ESSENTIAL
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CONTRIBUTORS RECEIVE A COMPLIMENTARY COPY
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VISIT: www.myspace.com/peterthabitjones
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POETS IN ISSUE 9 - PUBLISHED JANUARY 2009 .......................................................................
WALES: DAVID ALUN WILIAMS, ROBERT NISBET, BYRON BEYNON, ALAN KELLERMANN, JEAN SALKILLD, BERYL RICHARDS, LYNN HOPKINS, AERONWY THOMAS, MIKE JENKINS
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ENGLAND: SUE GUINEY, KATE EDWARDS, WES MAGEE, CAROLINE M. DAVIES, CHARLOTTE BOULAY-GOLDSMITH, CHRISTOPHER ALLAN, SIMON ZONENBLICK
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SCOTLAND: GERALDINE GREEN
RUSSIA: YURIY MIKORAVA
CATALONIA: AUGUST BOVER
ROMANIA: MAGDALENA DORINA SUCUI,
CASSIAN MARIA SPIRIDON
CHINA: MARINA MA
SICILY: MARCO SCALABRINO
INDIA: RITA MALHOTRA
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AMERICA: JOHN EDWIN COWEN, ROBIN METZ, TAMMY NUZZO-MORGAN, KATHY DONNELLY, JAMES HOGGARD, JIM GWYNN, PETER FULTON, ANNABELLE MOSELEY, TINO VILLANUEVA, ANDREI GURUIANU, SARAH PETRAK, A. E. WEDEMEYER, PHILIP MILLER, STANLEY H. BARKAN, LAURA BOSS, VINCE CLEMENTE, FRANE L. HELNER, MARIA MAZZIOTTI GILLAN, GAYL TELLER, ROBERT L. HARRISON
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The morning poet came early
like a worm waiting to be devoured
by very early birds hungry for words.
Like a child carrying
the first spring flowers
from the dark wood
into the sudden light
of a New England morning,
you pile the slim volumes
tottering, a mason
building a wall
that will last forever.
You mortise the four dozen or so
snugly in the white-birch box,
catch your breath
and pause to hear
in a gust through spruce-bough,
a loon’s call
across the mizzling lake,
the sudden lurch of the early train
in from Boston.
You wedge spaces with alpine moss
until the box, like a coffin
is airtight, then drag it
screeching to the wall
alongside the cane day-bed
down from the attic room
to the family parlor
where you’ll take
your final look at things.
A surveyor to the end,
you want to sound, to measure
the depths of all you love in Concord:
a family already rent by death,
only mother Cynthia
and sister Sophia are left,
and of course, all the maiden aunts.
Your life to the very end
is women-centered.
And all that’s left now
is to wait for death.
You know this for sure:
he’ll come out of the woods
hiking boots flecked with hematite,
a trillium dangling from his ear.
He’ll sit by the fire,
sip birch tea, and won’t leave
until you give in to sleep,
until your eyes are closed
and waters glide
under your eyelids,
porting you downstream
to a cove
where spartina hassocks
hold the sun,
LONG ISLAND SOUNDS: 2009/AN AMERICAN ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY From Maspeth to Montauk And Beyond, edited by Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan with Guest Editors Peter Thabit Jones, Allen Planz and Edmund White, published by The North Sea Poetry Scene Press. Forthcoming autumn 2009 from The North Sea Poetry Scene Press, 33 Woods Lane, Southampton, New York 11968, USA. Price $20.
UNDER A BALEFUL STAR - A Garland for Margaret Fuller - by Vince Clemente, published by Cross-Cultural Communications. A new collection from QUARRY’S Consulting Editor in America. A sequence for Margaret Fuller (‘one of the most far-reaching intellectual minds of the nineteenth century’) that is elegiac, a mini-verse drama, and totally fascinating. Bill Negron’s artwork is rhythmic, vivid and a perfect match for the poetry. Available from Cross-Cultural Communications, 239 Wynsum Avenue, Merrick, New York 11566-4725, USA. Price $25 (hardback) $15 (paperback).
THE LIZARD CATCHERS, a new book of poems, by Peter Thabit Jones, published in America by Cross-Cultural Communications, New York. Art work by Nick Holly. “I love its [The Lizard Catchers] clarity and modesty and truth, in fact, like the poems, the volume never strains - simply is itself!” - Vince Clemente, author of Sweeter Than Vivaldi. Available from Cross-Cultural Communications, 239 Wynsum Avenue, Merrick, New York 11566-4725, USA and from the Welsh Books
Council/www.gwales.com Price $25 (hardback) $15 (paperback).
TERRY CLARKE
'Night Ride to Birmingham' Terrapin TRPCD1506
Night Ride to Birmingham is the new album by Anglo/Irish writer/singer Terry Clarke, his first since 2002’s Green Voodoo. Terry Clarke's music is infused with the warm, breezy subtleties of Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael, the rough-hewn, hard-living country of Johnny Cash and the kind of street poetry and vivid imagery that make him one of the most important writers of his generation.
Available through Proper Distribution and from Terrapin Records
www.terryclarke.com
Paul Robeson walks with Johnny Cash
Across the coal-black hills of Wales,
And Stanley Baker lifts a glass
And toasts the streets where miners sat
On sun-blessed steps away from dust,
As your guitar licks through your voice.
Young, breathless Mickey Rourke is sat
Inside the ring where dreams are cash,
While Dylan Thomas weeps for Wales
And stuns New York with his proud voice,
You bring back songs that gathered dust
And music notes that vibrate glass.
Your ballads raise the Nashville dust
And New Orleans is in your voice.
Dream love and blues like gods are sat
In a bar room in Swansea, Wales;
And you’ve met her who laughs like cash.
You see through pain as clear as glass.
Your green guitar earns you your cash
In venues in and out of Wales.
And what hurt gives depth to your voice
That cuts the night like broken glass?
You’ve seen the loners who are sat
With drinks that shift the mind’s old dust.
The cotton fields’ lamenting voice
Was heard in mines that veined through Wales,
Where workers’ lungs were scarred with dust.
The poor have dreams of streams of cash
And bright arcades of gold and glass,
In your heart’s songs their sorrows sat.
Your green guitar, your singing voice
(That has the soul of Johnny Cash)
Take me back to a boy who sat
Inside a room of morning glass,
Which seemed to house the grief of Wales,
Till jailed-up Elvis shook time’s dust.
We pay no cash to hear your voice,
Sad drinkers sat in Swansea, Wales;
Where rain, soft as dust, kisses glass.
STRANGE SEASONS by Stanley H. Barkan, illustrated by Mark Polyakov, published by Ango Boyav, Sofia, Bulgaria. Available from: Cross-Cultural Communications, 239 Wynsum Avenue, Merrick, New York 11566-4725, USA.
Price $15.
Only the rain
reminds,
crystallized
moments.
Trees as stark
as undecorated fancies.
Stars as bright
in their constellations
as the vision
of progression
when first stepping
onto the snowless
but still hard earth
The zodiac of mind
is firmer than
the picture in the dark.
is a State University of New York English Professor Emeritus, is a poet, biographer and critic, whose many books include JOHN CIARDI: MEASURE OF THE MAN (University of Arkansas Press, 1987), PAUMANOK RISING (1981), and eight volumes of poetry, the latest being UNDER A BALEFUL STAR (2007)and SWEETER THAN VIVALDI (2002), which features art work by the late Ernesto F. Costa, who is represented in permanent collections in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and America’s Library of Congress. One of his books of poetry A PLACE FOR LOST CHILDREN (1997) is a text studied on POETS AND POETRY, a Certificate module and a part-time degree module, taught by Peter Thabit Jones at D.A.C.E., University of Wales Swansea.
Brought up in Brooklyn, New York, his work has also appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE BOSTON BOOK REVIEW, NEWSDAY, SOUTH CAROLINA REVIEW, and newspapers and other publications in Britain. It has also been featured in major anthologies, such as DARWIN: A NORTON CRITICAL EDITION, BLOOD TO REMEMBER: AMERICAN POETS ON THE HOLOCAUST (Texas Tech University Press) and SEPTEMBER 11th: AMERICAN WRITERS RESPOND.
For many years a trustee of the Walt Whitman Birthplace and founding editor of WEST HILLS REVIEW: A WALT WHITMAN JOURNAL, he has lectured at Hofstra, CW Post, SUNY Albany, as well as at museums like the Hecksher and Parish. His literary friends have included John Ciardi, who organised many influential NEW ENGLAND BREAD LOAF events, where Robert Frost was a frequent participant, House of Scribner’s New York Editor John Hall Wheelock, who edited many of Thomas Wolfe’s novels, and James Dickey, author of DELIVERANCE.
The VINCE CLEMENTE PAPERS, which is an impressive display of his long life as a writer, biographer and critic, and which includes the correspondence between Vince Clemente and Peter Thabit Jones and poem manuscripts by the Welsh poet, is part
of the Department of Rare Books & Collections of Rochester University, New York.
“And this is why you are one of our important writers: because your speaking voice, natural voice, is your writing voice, too. And this means you have earned, by a long life of integrity, such honesty that makes the rest of us listen hard.” - William Heyen, American poet and editor.
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BLOOD TO REMEMBER
AMERICAN POETS ON THE HOLOCAUST Revised, second edition
Edited by Charles Adés Fishman
The sacred duty of Holocaust remembrance — commemorating the
dead, honoring the living, and posing the pertinent theological, ethical,
and political questions generated by the Holocaust — is the substance
of Charles Fishman’s compelling collection of American Holocaust
poetry. Fishman successfully assembles works that render a historically
remote and often painfully resisted subject in a manner that makes the catastrophe real. . . One is grateful for the book’s sound critical notes, its
exploration of the moral implications of the Holocaust and problematics
of writing Holocaust poetry, and its witness to the terrifying truths of
human history while asserting the indestructibility of the human spirit.
Highly recommended. - CHOICE
A book that should be compulsory reading. - THE SEVENTH QUARRY
Blood to Remember (paperback $27.95 / hard cover $42.50)
Payment: Check (payable to Time Being Books)
visit www.timebeing.com
Please send order and payment to Time Being Books, 10411 Clayton Road, #201—203, St. Louis, MO 63131.
THE SEVENTH QUARRY Editor Peter Thabit Jones
won First Prize in the First International Festival of Peace Poetry Competition 2007, organised by leading Persian poet and academic Dr. Rira Abbassi. The Competition received submissions from over sixty countries. The seven prize winners’ poems were celebrated at the Festival, which was attended by hundreds of people. The poems have been translated into Persian and published.
a lie in the dark
the past in me
battles against the past
a million mutinies pass
falsity ferments
falsehood grows
time protests
wild thoughts protest
in vain
falsehood gains,
falsehood
only falsehood.
