Matchbox

COPYS By Craig Dworkin

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‘My idea for these poems is that they be like cigarettes. On the one hand, briefly intense and repaying as much focused contemplation as you want to give them — each is in fact composed according to a rigorous and elided formal logic — but then also, at the very same time, merely discardable amusements: quickly read and easily forgotten, thrown away without a second thought as soon as they are finished.’ — Craig Dworkin

Originally published in the UK by Matchbox in May 2007, No press is proud to return this rarely-seen edition to print.

Published in a limited edition of 50 copies (25 of which are for sale) each copy consists of 34 loose cards in a hand-typed envelope.

Copies are available for $8.00 each (including postage).

To order, please contact derek beaulieu.

Matchbox Poetry in India

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If poetry is all about firing your imagination, this one literally comes in a matchbox.

An avid poetry lover in Jorhat, India, is emptying matchboxes, filling them with rolls of poems and selling them for a mere Rupees 5 to help popularise Assamese poetry among the uninitiated.

The man behind the innovative idea, Bipul Regon, insists that the formula works.

“Innovative ideas always sell and believe me my messages in the matchboxes are selling big,” said Regon, a novelist himself.

Read more in The Calcutta Telegraph

Simon Taylor’s responses to Scott Thurston’s Internal Rhyme

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In 2007, in the space of two weeks, Simon Taylor responded to Scott Thurston’s Matchbox N0. 9, Internal Rhyme, shooting around 12 films. These were then edited down to 150 negatives which became 150 unique gifts in  Matchbox No. 9.  Matchbox No.9 was just a sample of the collection Internal Rhyme which will be available in 2011 from Shearsman. Other parts of the poem have been published over the last couple of years in various magazines. The links below are to:

Matchbox No.9, Scott Thurston’s Internal Rhyme poems (Poetry Library digital archive)

Simon Taylor’s Photos set 1

Simon Taylor’s Photos set 2

Simon Taylor’s Photos set 3

Poetry Library Special Collections and Artists’ Book Open Day

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Poetry Library Special Collections and Artists’ Book Open Day

Sunday 15 November 2009

 From the first drafts of Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake in the magazine Transition (1927) and the beginnings of Philip Larkin’s and Simon Armitage’s careers in pamphlet form, The Poetry Library collection includes the whole range of poetry publications since 1912. The Library invites you to an open display of posters, pamphlets, artists’ books, postcards and magazines from its various collections. With items from early modernism through to the Beat and Concrete movements, take this chance to engage with the underworld of nearly a century of poetry, including works on display from TS Eliot, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Robert Creeley and Sarah Lucas.

Also includes a section ‘mail out poetry’ with Matchbox

Link

Matchbox Digital Archive at The Poetry Library

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pict0
For me the whole thing was about how to get good poetry read by people who don’t usually read good poetry, create excitement, be cheap to produce and sell; and yet not be some folded A4 paper. There were about 150 or so of each issue – all sold out now. The limited number of copies made was due completely down to the fact that I was getting sores on my fingers from cutting and folding not due to exclusivity so it’s wonderful that Dean Farrow, Chris McCabe et al have archived the editions for anyone who’s not read the poems or seen what the boxes looked like. So far the first 6 are up with the final six to come.

Link