This is Mark's blog.
In early 2021, four of my poems and a mini interview was featured in the Flapper Press online Poetry Café.
The article was contributed by the North American poet Annie Newcomer, of Kansas, by invitation.
It was nice to receive the coverage for my poetry in America.
Here is the link:
In March 2021, my publishing company HeadworX released the Selected Poems of Margaret Jeune in hardback.
I personally edited/compiled the book, some 270 pages, from Margaret's previously published collections with HeadworX along with 51 uncollected poems from the pages of Tony Chad's poetry magazine Valley Micropress along with a section of new and uncollected poems. The book is the first to present Jeune's work in chronological order from 1968-2020.
I am very pleased to include this title in the HeadworX New Poetry Series.
For more details on the book, please visit the HeadworX website:
Selected Poems by Margaret Jeune
Delayed from December 2020, my latest collection of rugby poems, Sevens, was published by Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop in March 2021.
It presents 7 new poems written since the publication of Sidelights in 2017. Included is a sequence of poems ‘Three All Black Greats’ in honour of several of New Zealand’s finest rugby players: Christian Cullen, Julian Savea and Jerome Kaino.
An addenda features seven other rugby related poems I have recently been sent or have published as an editor/publisher. Poets included are Tony Beyer, Margaret Jeune, Jane Matheson, Bill Sutton and C A J Williams.
The book constitutes a seven-a-side game, two halves of seven poems each or two sides made up of seven poems each.
In November 2020, my first art book, Folk Punk: Selected Photos, Artworks and Drawings 1985-2020, was published by Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop.
It is in the same series as Nigel Brown, Nigel Yates, Wayne Seyb, Michael O'Leary and Margaret Jeune.
Folk Punk is the first of two volumes collecting my work as an artist and book designer. Volume One, Folk Punk, contains a selection of my photography 1985-2020 plus illustrations/artworks and drawings of Pirie’s music influences as a poet: Bono, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Anthony Kiedis, David Bowie, Sammy Hagar and Kurt Cobain.
The book complements my poetry and also gives portraits of other writers, performers or musicians who have been important to my work and life as an editor and publisher over the years, including Michael O’Leary, Alistair and Meg Campbell, Andrew Fagan, Bill Direen and Alistair Paterson.
Volume Two will be book covers and graphic designs I have done for the book trade.