Carcanet Press

Carcanet Press Carcanet publishes an award-winning, comprehensive and diverse list of modern and classic poetry. Carcanet was a literary magazine, founded in 1962.

Michael Hind, a member of the original editorial board, recalls how the idea was to 'collect together and publish as a periodical poetry, short fiction, and "intelligent criticism of all the arts"; there were to be both student and senior members contributions.' The intention was to link Oxford and Cambridge. The magazine Carcanet had fallen on hard times by October 1967 when Michael Schmidt, a ne

wly arrived undergraduate at Wadham College, Oxford, took it over. Times got harder still. In 1969 as a swansong the magazine produced a few pamphlets: poetry by new writers from Britain, India and the United States, and a book of translations. The reviews were encouraging. In 1970-1971 Carcanet Press became Ltd. The swansong continues, the bird having upped sticks and left Matthew Arnold's (and Robert Graves's) South Hinksey, Oxford, for Thomas de Quincey's Manchester.

'Continue to build' is what independent literary houses must do. They build readership and backlist, but also authority and their own legitimacy. We make books available and, in an age of disposables, keep them available. As the balance of publishing shifts to front list, Carcanet, radical in disposition, keeps books in print for as long as possible. This kind of husbandry has more in common with forestry than with fast food. Carcanet enjoys Arts Council support and can range more widely than commercial publishers dare to do. Its list includes, alongside new writers from all over the world, major authors from the twentieth and earlier centuries, figures about whom readers and writers need to know if they are to get a hold on the Modern and its aftermaths. Our commitments involve the mammoth Ford Madox Ford, Robert Graves and Hugh MacDiarmid projects. We have forged strong Anglo-European and Anglo-Commonwealth links. Our focal interest is in literature in English -- all the Englishes now spoken and written. In 1999 the Press acquired Oxford University's fine poetry list. OxfordPoets now emanate from Manchester. Latterly we have forged close links with Glasgow, where Carcanet has an editorial office in the School of English and Scottish Literature and Language. Since the age of the venerable Bede, translation has been crucial to the growth of our literature. Carcanet is naturally active here, producing award-winning translations of the classics and of new work from around the world. Dedicated to discovery, appraisal and reappraisal, Carcanet is a unique survivor in the precarious world of literary imprints. Our editorial continuity has generated a list of deep coherence and innovation, not only among the authors rediscovered but also among the new authors we publish. In an age teased by post-Modern relativism and post-millennial uncertainty, where literary value sometimes plays second fiddle to the demon profit and that other demon of ephemeral political imperatives, Carcanet takes its bearing from Modernism. It bases its activities on the best practice of the last century, during which great lists were forged -- some of which did not survive as independents into the changing twenty-first century.

25/01/2025

Join us online at 9am on February 13th, when Beverley Bie Brahic will be the featured reader on Poetry Breakfast. Beverley will be reading a selection of poems centred around the theme 'Poetic Erotic'. The Zoom link will be sent out a day before the event, and we ask that attendees sign in to the Zoom between 8:50-9am. This event is free for first time attendees.

To sign up, contact Anna Dreda, [email protected], by 6pm on Wednesday 12th February.

24/01/2025

Join us in Oxford at 6pm on the 10th March to hear 15 poets read their patchwork Catullus Poem 64, his longest known work. Free wine and nibbles will be provided.

Translators reading: Alice Ahearn, Maureen Almond, John Clegg, Jane Goldman, Stephen Harrison, Nic Liney, Jamie McKendrick, James Methven, Thom Murphy, Dave Neita, Camille Ralphs, Tristram Fane Saunders, Gail Trimble, Richard Wigmore, Isobel Williams, and Alex Wong.

The address will be shared to those who RSVP [email protected].

This week in the newsletter, you can dive into The Face in the Well by Rebecca Watts. There's also a review of Oksana Ma...
24/01/2025

This week in the newsletter, you can dive into The Face in the Well by Rebecca Watts. There's also a review of Oksana Maksymchuk in the TLS, T.S. Eliot prize readings on BBC Radio 4, the recording of the online launch held for Collected Poems by Mimi Khalvati and more! https://mailchi.mp/carcanet/291124-8905938

'War is the most communal of tragedies, and yet, as Maksymchuk’s shrewd poems tell us, everyone’s war is unique, taking ...
23/01/2025

'War is the most communal of tragedies, and yet, as Maksymchuk’s shrewd poems tell us, everyone’s war is unique, taking place in the intimate shadows of the self.'

Uilleam Blacker on Still City by Oksana Maksymchuk, for the Times Literary Supplement:

“Standing in the full / glare of the war, I’m a surface / reflecting its awesome light”, Oksana Maksymchuk declares in Still City, her debut

Rebecca Watts: A Carcanet Online Book Launch! 📖On Wednesday 5th February at 7pm, please join us online to celebrate the ...
23/01/2025

Rebecca Watts: A Carcanet Online Book Launch! 📖

On Wednesday 5th February at 7pm, please join us online to celebrate the launch of The Face in the Well by Rebecca Watts. The event will be hosted by Vona Groarke and will feature readings, discussion & audience Q&A.

Book your ticket here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_D_-c-QzpQ1i4BBL6Wo3qxQ #/registration

This month, we are publishing The Face in the Well by Rebecca Watts! 🌑In her vibrant third collection, Rebecca Watts shi...
23/01/2025

This month, we are publishing The Face in the Well by Rebecca Watts! 🌑

In her vibrant third collection, Rebecca Watts shines a light on the tender, spontaneous, creative and creaturely aspects of the self, and asks how we might nurture and shield these from the many physical, psychological and social forces predisposed to keep them down.

Wearing a variety of costumes, or none at all, the characters in these dramatic poems play hide-and-seek, guarding their vulnerabilities while yearning for greater connection with others and the world. Animals, as totems and spirit guides, swim, run and fly across the pages. Children tiptoe and improvise their way through landscapes designed to curtail and bewilder them. Adults curate their own funerals, befriend spiders, try to love each other, and go to war. Poets and other heroes – Brontë, Heaney, Plath, Yeats, Mary Poppins – are confronted, reflected, refracted and left echoing anew.

Order using the code JNFB2025 for 20% off and free UK P&P: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781800174580

The recording of the online book launch held for Collected Poems by Mimi Khalvati, hosted by Hannah Lowe, is up on our Y...
22/01/2025

The recording of the online book launch held for Collected Poems by Mimi Khalvati, hosted by Hannah Lowe, is up on our YouTube now! Click below to watch ⬇️

The recording of the online book launch held for Collected Poems by Mimi Khalvati, hosted by Hannah Lowe on 20th November 2024.Find out more info and buy the...

Join the Chineke! Orchestra on Friday 24th January to celebrate their tenth anniversary at the Southbank Centre! Roderic...
22/01/2025

Join the Chineke! Orchestra on Friday 24th January to celebrate their tenth anniversary at the Southbank Centre! Roderick Williams will be playing ‘Three Songs from Ethiopia Boy’, which sets 3 of Chris Beckett’s poems to music.

More information about the event: https://www.chineke.org/events/southbank-centre-chineke-orchestra-celebrates-a-decade

You can buy a copy of Ethiopia Boy here: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=536

Southbank Centre: Chineke! Orchestra Celebrates a Decade Friday 24 January 2025 7:30 pm 9:00 pm 19:30 21:00 Google Calendar ICS The orchestra begins a year of celebrations marking its tenth anniversary with a performance in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which also hosted its 2015 debut.This landmark...

This week our Meet the Author video is by Rebecca Watts, writer of The Face in the Well, which is published this month! ...
21/01/2025

This week our Meet the Author video is by Rebecca Watts, writer of The Face in the Well, which is published this month! 🌑

Click below to hear Rebecca talk about the thought experiment that led to her poem 'I Want to Be the Orange', and read from the collection.

Listen to Rebecca Watts introduce her new poetry collection, The Face In the Well. Rebecca talks about the thought experiment that led to her poem 'I Want to...

Listen to highlights of Carl Phillips, Rachel Mann and the rest of the T.S. Eliot Prize Readings on the most recent epis...
21/01/2025

Listen to highlights of Carl Phillips, Rachel Mann and the rest of the T.S. Eliot Prize Readings on the most recent episode of BBC Radio 4’s The Verb!

Highlights of the TS Eliot Prize Readings - extraordinary poetry from 2024.

‘Precision, wit, and quiet profundity… the collection as a whole is evidence that Watts is now truly amongst the most in...
20/01/2025

‘Precision, wit, and quiet profundity… the collection as a whole is evidence that Watts is now truly amongst the most interesting poets out there.’

Rebecca Watts's new collection, The Face in the Well, reviewed in Wood Bee Poet:

All the precision, wit, and quiet profundity that readers of Rebecca Watt’s previous two collections, The Met Office Advises Caution and Red Gloves have come to expect are again on display in her t…

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Videos

Festival Summit 1080x1080
Festival Summit 1080x1080

What role can poetry play in addressing the climate crisis? Olive Senior and Jorie Graham (joining virtually) will come together with other leading ecopoets for the Poetry International Opening Night: Festival Summit at the Southbank Centre. Book here: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/literature-poetry/poetry-international-opening-night-festival-summit 21.07.23 | 7.30pm | Southbank Centre

The Lascaux Notebooks: A Preview
The Lascaux Notebooks: A Preview

Learn about the life and work of Jean-Luc Champerret in this video made by editor and translator of The Lascaux Notebooks, Philip Terry. The Lascaux Notebooks is published this month - find out more and buy the book with 20% off using code APRILBOOKS: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=2414 Watch on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0f1bZP-Id8

Discover the inspirations behind Sheri Benning's haunting new collection, Field Requiem, in her Meet the Author video - just published on the Carcanet YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/TBtJpcKoTLE The book bears witness to the violence inherent in the shift to industrialised farming in prairie Canada. These poems chart the ways in which a way of life in the world of the family farm collapses, and charts the speaker's suffering. Buy the book with 20% off using the code SEPTBOOKS https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781800171510 and register for the launch on September 29th with Karen Solie https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__9o3rxvfRb2kJLImB5Xp7A

We're thrilled to announce our 'Meet the Author' series: a new video series introducing the authors/editors of our books! 🥳 We're beginning with a discussion between three editors of our recent Carcanet Classic, Yves Bonnefoy's Prose. The editors are Stephen Romer, John Naughton and Antony Rudolf. 🇫🇷 Watch the discussion on our YouTube, and keep your eyes peeled for our next Meet the Author video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFYnCGzWCCs

Vahni Capildeo at Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival
Vahni Capildeo at Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival

Watch Vahni Capildeo, author of the Forward Prizes for Poetry shortlisted 'Venus as Bear', reading from her work at the Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival! This video was kindly filmed and shared by Tony Hill, which we are very thankful for. To learn more about Vahni, please visit our website: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=1167

IN THE HOUSE! Ian Pople who contributes to PN Review came in and read his poem Ravenna from PNR 235.

John Greening reads Dennis O'Driscoll
John Greening reads Dennis O'Driscoll

Hopefully you can view this! Here's John Greening reading Dennis O'Driscoll's poem 'No, Thanks' at the launch of O'Driscoll's Collected Poems in Dublin last month

In the house: Grevel Lindop reads 'Stones' from his latest collection, Luna Park.

It's been a while since we had anyone in the house... James Davies reads from his new collection 'stack'

In the house. Judith Willson reads a poem from her forthcoming book CROSSING THE MIRROR LINE.

In the house! Poet and quondam Carcanet editor Helen Tookey came to see us yesterday and was prevailed upon to read a poem!

The first female Jamaican Poet Laureate Lorna Goodison reading from her Collected Poems at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester

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