| Hidden Light | Mole Valley Poets |
| Edge & Cusp | Richard Lister |
| Down to Earth | Mole Valley Poets |
| If Grief were a Bird | Elizabeth Barton |
| Memory | Mole Valley Poets |
| Home | Mole Valley Poets |
| Even in the Shadow | Mole Valley Poets |
| Christmas Anthology 2019 | Mole Valley Poets |
| Surrey Unearthed | Mole Valley Poets |
| Murmuration | Mole Valley Poets |
| Christmas Anthology 2015 | Mole Valley Poets |
| Along the Way | Mole Valley Poets |
| Seen but not heard | Mole Valley Poets |
| Light Shines Through | Mole Valley Poets |
| Inscapes & Horizons | Helen Overell |
| Thumbprints | Helen Overell |
| Measures for lute | Helen Overell |
| Paths and Digressions | Tony Earnshaw |
| Bull Run | Tony Earnshaw |
| From Cradle to Grave | Tony Earnshaw |
| Kenyan Journey | Tony Earnshaw |
| Pocketing the Tide | Diana Webb |
| Inroads | A A Marcoff |
| Once Again the Heron | A A Marcoff |
| Appearances & Worlds | A A Marcoff |
| Wild Suns | A A Marcoff |
| The Dialectics Of Rain | A A Marcoff |
Edge & Cusp Richard Lister
What lies beyond the familiar and tangible? In this collection Richard Lister explores what happens at life's edges. He reflects on how we respond to loss, vulnerability and hope and considers themes of perseverance and grace. Eileen Casey describes his work as 'rich in allusions and textual layers' and 'a celebration of ordinary magic perceived by a keen eye'.
Richard writes with warm empathy about people who live at the margins. These encounters are informed by his experience of living in Malawi, Cambodia and across the UK. Sky Island Journal commented that they 'rarely see this kind of emotional intimacy executed with such svelte grace'. As a semi-abstract painter, Richard writes with an artist's eye for the evocative.
Down to Earth. Mole Valley Poets Anthology 2023
In this latest Mole Valley Poets anthology the theme of Down to Earth has been interpreted in many ways from contemplation on the beginnings of time, how humanity affects the future of the planet, nature's seasons and beauty as well as its harsh reality, what it is to be human, kindness, fantasy, death and life in a variety of styles and voices. We hope you enjoy this collection.
For further information please contact the Secretary.
If Grief were a Bird – poetry pamphlet published by Agenda Editions.
Available from Agenda Editions.
'Elizabeth Barton's poems are like the linnet's wings she evokes in the opening piece of this stunning collection – delicate but capable of taking flight. She finds striking beauty in ordinary moments and records joy and sadness with great compassion. These poems are small inventories of what we treasure – Barton summons us from our shadow lives and gives us words to soar.'
Tamar Yoseloff
'Elizabeth Barton has a unique voice – rooted in her love for the land, the earth, and also for her family and the father she has lost. The poems in this pamphlet are carefully crafted, and the beauty of the language, and the rare image or turn of phrase, make a music very like a song 'rich as honeycomb', or like a bird that is singing of the world – a world of searing grief and loss and pain, but also of 'jasmine flowers' and a sublime 'iridescence'. It is through nature that she has found the words to articulate her grief over her father's death, and to make sorrow a way of singing and an art. Barton sings from the whole heart.'
A A Marcoff
Memory. Mole Valley Poets Anthology 2022
This anthology takes its theme Memory – paradoxically because the editor couldn't remember the excellent theme originally thought of ... and still can't.
From childhood to ageing, time, war, to loved ones and places, these poems range far and wide through memories from the Mole Valley Poets and culminate in a collection to be remembered.
For further information please contact the Secretary.
Home. Mole Valley Poets Anthology 2021
This year's theme is Home – a word that conjures so many things and means so much – places, people, buildings, countries, music, memories. Each of the Mole Valley Poets has taken the theme and spun a colourful and varied collection of poems, many written over the last year when we have spent more time than ever at home.
For further information please contact the Secretary.
Even in the Shadow. Mole Valley Poets Anthology 2020
This anthology takes its inspiration from the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage who described the climate crisis as a "background hum that won't go away".
"Now nature has very much come back into the centre of what poetry can, and should, be dealing with. And you can't write poems about the natural world now unless it's in an environmental context. Every word you write on that subject sort of quakes with the background predicament."
With the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic highlighting how much the world can change, this collection of poems looks at the despair and hope of how we can affect the natural world.
Readings from Even in the Shadow book launch, 15th June 2020
For further information please contact the Secretary.
Mole Valley Poets Christmas Anthology 2019
The Mole Valley Poets 'Christmas Anthology' published in 2019 is still available. All profits from this anthology will go to CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) a charity which works at preventing young sudden cardiac deaths through awareness, screening and research, and supporting affected families. For further information please contact the Secretary.
Surrey Unearthed. Mole Valley Poets Anthology 2018
The Mole Valley Poets Anthology 'Surrey Unearthed' celebrates the Surrey Hills as an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and inspired by the Surrey Unearthed project. The 2018 Mole Valley Poets Anthology invites you to wonder at the many facets of the Surrey landscape. For further information please contact the Secretary.
Murmuration. Mole Valley Poets Anthology 2016
The Mole Valley Poets Anthology Murmuration has all the swirling intensity of a murmuration with sudden switches of movement and mood, images and sentiment. Mole Valley Poets invite you into their "murmuration" of poetry. We hope you enjoy the display. For further information please contact the Secretary.
Mole Valley Poets Christmas Anthology 2015
The Mole Valley Poets 'Christmas Anthology' was produced in 2015. All profits from this anthology were donated to CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) a charity which works at preventing young sudden cardiac deaths through awareness, screening and research, and supporting affected families. For further information please contact the Secretary.
Along the way. Mole Valley Poets Anthology 2014
The Mole Valley Poets Anthology Along the way takes the reader on a journey from Roman snails on Ranmore to the moon, from river to sea, from the North to Dorking. There are birds – swift, goldfinch, robin and magpie. There are lambs-tails and wild poppies, candles of horse-chestnut flowers. The harmonious whole is made up of distinct and individual voices. For further information please contact the Secretary.
Seen but not heard. Mole Valley Poets Anthology 2011
The anthology Seen but not heard was prepared by the Mole Valley Poets in 2011. For further information please contact the Secretary.
Light shines through. Mole Valley Poets Anthology 2009
The anthology Light shines through was prepared by the Mole Valley Poets in 2009. For further information please contact the Secretary.
Inscapes & Horizons Reflections on Life in Verse (ISBN: 9780904849394) Helen Overell. Published by Saint Albert's Press, Faversham, Kent.
In this collection of poems Helen Overell shares intimate reflections on the world and on her own life story. Though sometimes a story of sadness and burden, it is nevertheless told with expressions of beauty, wit, and hope with which many will resonate. Her poetry reveals - in the best tradition of the Carmelite Order - an appreciation of the domestic and the natural that leads to a perception of something divine.
Available from AbeBooks £7.50
Thumbprints (ISBN 978-1-906856-53-3 Helen Overell. Published by Oversteps Books.
Gentle, perceptive, haunting poetry.
Available from Oversteps Books.
Helen Overell has the delicate eye of a painter and a precise ear for the music of a phrase. She is sensitive to the fine nuances of place and situation. As the title of the book suggests, her subject is how we leave our mark as we pass through the world. These are subtle but powerful poems that are passionate and compassionate about who we are and how we live. Tamar Yoseloff.
Helen Overell is a sensitive poet. She never writes the obvious whether she is describing a patch of vegetation on a moor, magpies, a herd of goats in Jordan holding up a minibus or the behaviour of people in a care home. Close observation is expressed in telling and delicate language. The poems in Thumbprints carry an unstated empathy and a deep spirituality. They stay in the mind long after they have been read. Myra Schneider.
There is a gentle haunting in Helen Overell's second collection: Thumbprints (Oversteps 2015.) The collection stayed with me after I finished reading: certain images, a turn of phrase here and there, lingered long enough for me to want to return to the poems. Her poetic skills include the accumulation of sharply observed details, a smoothness of syntax, and a precision in language. Here, in work that takes science and nature for subject matter, are poems that encompass both the corporal and the ethereal: Her opening poem, 'Kaleidoscope', promises the reader a taste of what is to come: a sense of shifting perspectives, always rich in detail, always pleasing to the eye, always leaving the reader wanting to turn the page in order to witness the "marvels [that] burst into being ..." And throughout the collection, poems that examine familiar territory such as illness, aging, the holocaust, grief, do so in a fresh and compassionate light, always ending with a note of hope. Thumbprints was a pleasure to read and I shall read it again and recommend it to others. Maureen Jivani.
Measures for lute published by The Lute Society November 2020.
Available from The Lute Society
Helen Overell's new pamphlet Measures for lute is a sparkling ray of light in these troublesome times. Each poem is in itself a lyric in praise of the musical, a song of itself, which plays close attention to rhythm, pitch and timbre. From the opening descriptive poem: 'Renaissance Lute' – to the end portraiture poem: 'Lutenist', the modulation is so carefully considered and the movement so beautiful that we know we are in the hands of a skillful composer of harmonious poems.
Maureen Jivani
Early reactions to Paths and Digressions include;
'This is a lovely collection of poetry divided into six sections. Each one asks, "What's it all about?" Tony Earnshaw paints moving life pictures using simple direct language that examine childhood, faith, war, wealth and all the idiosyncrasies of modern life. These are poems to read again and again, each time digging deeper into how little we actually know about who we are and why we are here.' Lynn Ruth Miller, author and standup.
"I absolutely loved this collection of poems. Diverse and refreshing, at times sad, often joyful, but always thought-provoking. From the elegant Castlerigg to the hard-hitting Abdullah, the provocative Beyond to the heartbreaking I encountered death early, and the humorous Fox to the shocking Duck Shooting – Paths and Digressions is a remarkable collection of poetry, taking the reader on a journey through life, love, religion, politics, and ultimately humanity. And the clever opening haikus are an added bonus!". Steven Hayward, author and publisher.
All collections "available from the author"
Pocketing the Tide
Diana Webb
32 haibun and 17 haiku – most previously published and some award-winning – from Diana Webb, devotee of the Mole Valley, recent grandmother and strong believer in the power of recapturing childlike wonder and expressing it through haibun and haiku. Diana, who currently edits Time Haiku, has published five haiku books with Hub Editions and also one previous haibun collection, Takeaway. The first 6 people who order a copy of her new book will receive a free copy of Takeaway.
A sample of content:
Sway
Over the footpath's curve across the bridge, an obstacle, formed of fronds from the bank below hangs in our way. Softly we swish through. 'Wil-low.' I balance out each syllable. Say 'willow, willow.' His smile reflects the water's gleam beneath.
to and fro
through an Indian summer
the playground swing
What people have said about Pocketing the Tide:
'An introspection of subjects, rather than self, is the delicate
enterprise of Diana Webb's fine collection of haibun. A poet whose
interests are wide, she celebrates family, friends, other people, other
times, places near and dear to her heart; touching points of incidence
as diverse as the everyday, spirituality and nature. The superb control
of tone, the subtle interplay of rhythm, sound and meaning, the acute
sensibility with which she garners stories from many sources combine
in a consistent text. Here you will find subtle vignettes on nature,
history, memory and landscape, each short piece filled with insight,
sensitivity and brilliance. The accompany haiku are luminous and elegant
in their simplicity and wisdom. A finely considered inspection of fragility
and transience is balanced by sophisticated confidence.'
– Patricia Prime, Kokako
'In these pieces the 'feast of Epiphany' moves out into the fields where
the beauty of rose windows is apprehended again in the flash of a
kingfisher. 'Alleluia', the poet cries as in moments of wondrous sight
matter become mindful.'
– Paul Matthews, poet and educator
To order:
UK customers: £10.00 post free from Alba Publishing, PO Box 266, Uxbridge
UB9 5NX (cheques to "Alba Publishing", BACS payments* to 18-00-02, ac
06253291). If you pay by BACS please email info@albapublishing.com with
name and address.
Overseas customers: US$12 / €12 + P&P via Paypal
(info@albapublishing.com).
Alba Publishing, paperback pp96, ISBN 9780-9572592-9-4
Website: www.albapublishing.com
Wild Suns (ISBN: 978-1-903746-67-7) A A Marcoff. Published by Hub Editions.
For further information please contact the Secretary.
The Dialectics of Rain (ISBN: 1-903746-55-8) A A Marcoff. Published by Hub Editions.
For further information please contact the Secretary.