News

Koo Press Poet Gerard Rochford Update:

NEW FROM EMBERS HANDPRESS.
(Previous publications include:Sylvia Plath, Lorca, Basho.)
 

Click Here to Purchase a Copy

Failing Light - poems by Gerard Rochford.
ISBN 978-0-9562686-1-7.
 

Responses from other poets:

Michael Dennis Browne. Poet and Professor of Creative Writing, University of Minneapolis/St. Paul. "These quietly startling poems surprise with their precision and imaginative richness..."

Magi Gibson. Makar (poet laureate) City of Stirling, Scotland. "...explores themes of love and loss, of separation and connection. ...with delicate and often witty observations of birds and animals (and) ...sensitively observed human relationships. A sensitive, engaging collection."

Lorna Crozier. Poet - University of Victoria, B.C. Governor General's Award, Canadian Authors' Award for Poetry. "The ghazals [in this collection] leap across the space between poet and reader and root inside you. You won't forget their power and insights."

Gerard Rochford was raised in Worcestershire and lives in Aberdeen, Scotland.
He has been much published in the U.K. and Canada in magazines, anthologies and collections. His poem 'My Father's Hand' was chosen by Janice Galloway as one of the best 20 Scottish poems of 2006. His recent publications include Eating Eggs with Strangers, The Holy Family and Other Poems, and Figures of Stone. (Koo Press)
The edition consists of 200 copies, 26 case-bound and lettered A-Z, signed by the author, and 174 numbered in a Zerkall mould-made card wrapper. The text paper is pure rag mould-made "Somerset" from St Cuthbert's Mill. 36pp, 255x175mm.

Click the link below for an interview with Koo Press Poet Kathleen Kenny

and e-zine 'Women Rule Writer':

WOMEN RULE WRITER: WRITER KATHLEEN KENNY - INTERVIEW

Koo Press is pleased to announce that "Part-Truths" by Michael Pedersen has been shorlisted for the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award for poetry pamphlets, 2009.

The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh on Wednesday 19th May 2010.

News - National Library of Scotland

Koo Press poet Gerard Rochford has been appointed Makar for the online Scottish Review, a thrice weekly magazine. He will provide a poem a month throughout 2010.

Scottish Review covers all aspects of political, social and cultural life and arises out of the Institute of Contemporary Scotland.

Scottish Review : Gerard Rochford

"Dirty Laundry" by Fiona Sinclair. Available from 24th April 2010.

Not to be missed, a cracking unfolding of domestic affairs, laced with gallows humour. Yes, long after that last line has been read, the narrative and imagery still resonate like a bell.

So, pull up a seat, turn the page and tune into this taut shock opera, a domestic and emotional helter-skelter, where, in a brick bungalow events uncoil, augmented by the shady lodger...

Published November 2009 "Demented Eloquence" from performance poet Rapunzel Wizard. "Hilarious and hard hitting political poetry" - Comedy Capers, 2009
 

Forthcoming poetry chapbooks from:

TBA: Bryony Harrower, a teenage poet with an immensity of talent that underlies her tender years. Publication early 2010

Koo Press Poetry Roadshow 2009:

Koo Press has been touring the northeast of Scotland this summer and autumn, and hopes to continue with the poetry roadshow next year. Thanks to all who attended and supported these events - not least the poets themselves.

Click Here for photos of the reading at Stuartfield Village Hall

Click Here for photos of the reading at the Grassic Gibbon Centre, Arbuthnott

Koo Press at STanza

Koo Press secured a stall at the Poets' Market at the STanza Festival, ST Andrews on Saturday 21st March, 2009. Besides our more recent publications, there was for sale a number of chapbooks from our back catalogue, at greatly reduced prices!

December 10th 2008

Koo Press at the Xmas Scottish Pamphlet Poetry Fair

November 29th 2007

Click the link below for launch night pictures of shedding skin by Catriona Yule

Shedding Skin

Hampshire Chronicle 31st August 2007

Poet Writes in Scots Dialect

There could be dozens of budding poets in Winchester, but this one can certainly claim to be a wee bit different. Ex-pat Scotsman George Hardie, 74, has had a collection of his poems put into a booklet entitled Identities by a specialist publisher, Koo Press Poetry, which is based in Aberdeen. That is no mean feat in itself, but this collection has a difference - it is written entirely in the Scots dialect.

Mr Hardie, of Bereweeke Road, Weeke, a retired builder's estimator and a former councillor in Hamilton, where he was born, has been writing since the 1960's. He originally started writing when he was still in Scotland and, ironically, he wrote in English. He started to take an interest in the Scots dialect, but then moved to Winchester. he said he 'dried up' then until about 1990, when he returned to Scotland to some work in Inverness. That inspired him once more and he returned to writing, this time in the Scots tongue.

Mr Hardie, who is married to Veronica and has three children, said: "I found it a language I was much more comfortable in, I could express myself far better. I also loved the old words, which I kept finding and could remember from my childhood, because my father used a fair number of them." On his return to Winchester, he continued to write in the dialect. He tried a few publishers, but they were not interested because they said the booklet, which he has dedicated to his four grandchildren, was not commercial enough. But he said when he asked Koo Press Poetry it jumped at the chance.

The poems are mainly about Mr Hardie's feelings and observations. Some are to do with nature and others look back to his childhood. A few were inspired by things he saw in Winchester, including one about a drunk on a bench in the park. He added: "I don't expect it is going to make a huge impact in Scotland or anywhere else, but if I get a little bit of recognition, if people buy it, read it and, more to the point, enjoy it, I'll be quite happy. Nobody ever made a fortune out of writing poetry."

George Hardie reads from Identities

George would like to share his thoughts on the subject of writing in Scots, especially whilst in isolation. 

The Auld Leid

Here I sit, faur furth o Scotland,
screivin awaa in the auld leid
tho sum wad hae it deid
 

but, did thay no tell
the sel-same tale
ti Hugh McDiarmid years sin syne,
ti Alex Scott and Garioch,
ti Goodsir Smith and
mony anither makar fine?
 

Yet, here I sit, faur furth o Scotland,
screivin awaa in the auld leid,
and naither me,
nor it,
were deid
whan last I luikit.

George Hardie

Poetry Koo for Town Event

As part of the Wordfringe 2007 festival which ran throughout May across the North-east of Scotland, Better Read Books in Ellon hosted a poetry evening on Friday the 25th. Poets Douglas Kynoch, Maureen Ross and Brian Lawrie were the main contributors to a Koo Press presentation entitled Laughter, Love and Lochnagar. With some delightful and insightful short poems Douglas Kynoch provided much of the laughter. With readings from her book Day Moth, Maureen Ross lent a feminine voice to different aspects of love. And Brian Lawrie gave an insight of his love of the Scottish mountain scene with a selection of poems from his book From Source to Sea.

Haworth Hodgkinson at a book signing of A Weakness for Mermaids.

Poets Brian Lawrie, Maureen Ross and Douglas Kynoch

Pictures and excerpt courtesy the Ellon Advertiser.

Koo Press poet Gerard Rochford's poem 'My father's Hand' has been chosen by Janice Galloway as one of the top twenty poems in Scotland for 2006.

Congratulations, Gerard!

My Father’s Hand

I like to wear a band around my wrist,
an amulet of copper, links of bling,
a hippy weave of cotton or dried grass.

Reminds me of a change
my father made as I grew up
from toddler to walker. Crossing a road
he stops holding my hand
and wraps his finger and thumb
around my wrist.

My bracelet now is like the brag
of a teenager leaving home,
flashing his cell-phone
where father’s number sleeps.

I wear my father’s hand around my wrist.