Monday 8 August 2016

My 'New & Selected Poems' and a pamphlet of my political poems

Song of Songs 2.0 - New & Selected Poems by Kevin Higgins will be published in February by Salmon Poetry and will, it is hoped, be launched at the 2017 AWP Conference in Washington D.C. 


The book will include selected poems from my previous five collections of poems, The Boy With No Face (Salmon, 2005); Time Gentlemen, Please (Salmon, 2008); Frightening New Furniture (Salmon, 2010); The Ghost In The Lobby (Salmon, 2014); and 2016 - The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins (NuaScéalta, 2016). 

It will also include a substantial collection of new poems.

Before that, I am delighted to announce, that the new Culture Matters imprint of U.K. based Manifesto Press will this Autumn be publishing The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed, a pamphlet collecting together a tightly knit group of twenty six of my recent more politically motivated poems.  
Following recent developments I will makes sure that all metaphors, similes, and hyperbolic outbursts contained in and around these poems are approved in advance of publication by the busy boys and girls of the Disputes and Discipline Department at British Labour Party Head Office.

SUSPENSION UPDATE The Continuing Adventures of Operation Ice Pick

Further to this story, I have today learned that my 'administrative suspension' as an overseas member of the British Labour Party has come about as a result of a frivolous complaint made my someone who was, it's clear, rather irked by three poems I shared on Twitter during the first few days of the attempted coup against Jeremy Corbyn in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote. 
The poems in question are Premature Elegy for Hilary Benn, The Ghost of Miniscule John Mann, and On Your Unsuitability for High Office. They can been read here, just scroll down and you'll find them.

They're sensitive souls at Labour Party HQ, and I am happy to admit that they have much to teach me about the need for me to be more subtle in the metaphors I use. 

Labour Party General Secretary, Iain McNicols, who has had an interesting day himself today, has appointed Sam Matthews of the Party's 'Disputes and Discipline' department to be investigating officer in my case. 

Just to be clear, that is not Iain McNicols pictured above holding the ice pick which killed Leon Trotsky. Mr McNicols is in fact pictured below. 
I look forward to discussing the subtleties of metaphor with Mr Matthews. 

P.S. Does anyone know of any expensive hotels in the central London area? Preferably one that has stuffed grape leaves and beetroot tapenade on the menu. I am presuming that I will have to travel to London for my metaphorical discussion with the good people of UK Labour Party HQ and that Iain McNicols will be paying my hotel bill.




Thursday 4 August 2016

Two readings at Belfast's Féile an Phobail next week

I'm off to Belfast's Féile an Phobail next week to do two readings at the festival. 

On Thursday afternoon/early evening I'll be reading at the Scribes at The Rock event, alongside Paul Laverty and Gerry Murphy, at the Rock Bar on the Falls Road.

The following evening I'll be reading and talking about my work, alongside Glenn Patterson and Angeline King, at Duncairn Cultural Arts Centre on the Antrim Road. 

Full details of both readings below.


For full details of the programme for this year's @FeileBelfast see here http://www.feile2016.com