Mark Pirie

In August and September, my publishing company HeadworX released two new poetry books by Brentley Frazer, of Brisbane, Australia, and MaryJane Thomson, of Wellington.

Frazer's book combines major new sequences with shorter lyrical, concrete and prose poems, and gives a generational sense of what it means to be an urban Australian looking into the future. A 21st century apocalyptic howl from the cities: Aboriginal to nowhere.

Thomson’s book, Songs of the City, is the third collection by her and continues the development in her poetic since her second collection Lonely Earth. Songs of the City ranges over contemporary issues and offers a generational assessment of a technologically driven world.

I’m very pleased to be publishing both of these titles by two excellent Australasian poets.

For more details on each book, please visit the HeadworX website:

Aboriginal to Nowhere by Brentley Frazer

http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz/poetry/aboriginal

Songs of the City by MaryJane Thomson

http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz/poetry/songs

In October and November, my publishing company HeadworX released two new poetry books by Michael O'Leary, of Paekakariki, and MaryJane Thomson, of Wellington.

O'Leary’s book is a fine collection of his railway poems that I put together in honour of his 65th birthday. O'Leary did not seek this publication, and it is a special book celebrating a significant writer's contribution to New Zealand poetry in English. The cover features an old photograph from the Turnbull Library by W W Stewart.

Thomson’s book, Lonely Earth, is the second collection by her and shows a major development in her poetic since her first collection Fallen Grace. It's a diverse, edgy read and features a mix of styles from minimalist two-line poems to longer poems. Topical and current, it deals with issues like care of the environment and humanity's history, particularly its wars and consumerism.

I’m very pleased to be publishing both of these titles by two gifted New Zealand poets.

For more details on each book, please visit the HeadworX website:

Main Trunk Lines: Collected Railway Poems by Michael O'Leary

http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz/poetry/maintrunklines

Lonely Earth by MaryJane Thomson

http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz/poetry/lonelyearth

My imprint The Night Press (a division of HeadworX Publishers) in Wellington, New Zealand, which publishes high quality limited edition booklets, has released the debut collection of poems by MaryJane Thomson.

Thomson is an artist, writer and photographer living in Wellington, New Zealand. Website: www.maryjanethomson.com Some of her poems have been published in Black Mail Press. Her first book, a memoir Sarah Vaughan is Not my Mother (Awa Press, 2013), was one of the year’s best books at Radio NZ and was widely reviewed in New Zealand papers/magazines. Kim Hill interviewed Thomson in 2013.

Thomson’s book, Fallen Grace, comprises a sequence of 24 poems selected and arranged by HeadworX editor Mark Pirie. These form a selection of her latest poems.

The poems, thought provoking and powerful, bristle with energy and evocative lines, richly layered. Thomson works by the process of thought construction, often using opposite images juxtaposed to build her poems. She offers an original insight in to society.

Auckland poet Riemke Ensing has written on Thomson’s Fallen Grace:
"And then suddenly, something very different to what you might have expected, is sent in the mail, and you’re caught unaware by what you might call the music of the street - a voice looking for a lost self, trying to make sense of the world – personally and politically. A questioning voice that feels marginalized and frequently alienated from much of the material world as we know it, but not necessarily wanting company either. It’s a voice looking for direction, wanting freedom from restraint, yet resorting (at times) to rhyme – wanting to hold on to the familiar without being enslaved. It’s an agitated voice, restless, anxious about conformity, about being ‘swallowed’ into commonality. Sometimes a sense of panic pervades, fear of being self-centered, ‘looking out from within … / your brain the flame’ but in the end, the influence that operates is grace – ‘the gold in the grey is hopeful’ and ‘the light comes in’."

Thomson’s book will be released in July this year in a limited print run and will be made available as a viewable pdf and free download from The Night Press website http://broadsheetnz.wordpress.com/other-publications/ or from my website under EBooks: http://www.markpirie.com/ebooks

The Night Press is a division/imprint of HeadworX Publishers and publishes the poetry journal broadsheet and occasional chapbooks/mini books.