Carcanet Press

Congratulations to Catherine-Esther Cowie and Lorna Goodison, who have been shortlisted in the poetry category of the 2026 OCM Bocas Lit Prize!

Very well done to Catherine-Esther and Lorna, and all the other shortlisted writers and publishers!🎉

Christopher Middleton's Complete Poems.

Last weekend I tried to find this on the @carcanet.bsky.social website. It was no longer available but I messaged them on here and they thought there might be one of two still kicking around the office. There was and here it is, just arrived. And that folks is how to do business. Thank you Carcanet.

Archives by Edwin Morgan generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon generation upon g neration up n g nerat on up n g nerat n up n g nerat n p n g erat n p n g era n p n g era n n g er n n g r n n g n n g n g

Today, 28 February, is Scottish Archives Day. Here’s Edwin Morgan’s poem “Archives”, published in Centenary Selected Poems, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020
@edmorgantrust.bsky.social
#archives #poetry #archives #ScottishArchivesDay
www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

BBC Radio 4 - The Verb, Sibling relationships with Blake Morrison, Natalie Shapero, Tara Bergin, and the word 'literally' Ian McMillan's guests are Blake Morrison, Natalie Shapero and Tara Bergin.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... Tara Bergin excellent as always @carcanet.bsky.social @imcmillan.bsky.social

Some lovely pictures of joint editors of A Letter to the Dead: Collected Poems by Lynette Roberts, Charles Mundye and Patrick McGuinness at an event honouring Roberts held last night at the Argentine Ambassador’s Residence in London.

Join Sinéad Morrissey on tour this Spring!🔥

Get your tickets here:
www.carcanet.co.uk/events/

Sinéad will be appearing at various locations across the UK to read from her upcoming memoir, Among Communists.

More dates to be announced!⭐

Hi Rob, yes Collected Poems is no longer available from our website. However, we may have some copies available in our office stock. Please email info@carcanet.co.uk to request a copy if you are interested.

Winter in the World by William Letford The old lady struggles, footsteps careful, leaving shuffle marks in the snow. No shopping bag, so maybe it’s church, and maybe not. Perhaps she is out for a walk, because she can, and the night is spare, and she is undiminished, and harder than bone.

The old lady struggles, footsteps careful, leaving shuffle marks in the snow…

—William Letford, “Winter in the World”
Published in BEVEL, @carcanet.bsky.social 2012
#bookologythursday #poem #poetry
carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

"I mean thick hedges, with trees nearby for a bit of shade and a field not a road not too far off"

#TodaysPoem #poetry
Hedge Sparrows by Richard Price (@paintedspoken.bsky.social) in Lucky Day (2005 @carcanet.bsky.social @byleaveswelive.bsky.social) www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/hedge-s...

Twilight of a Tyranny Edwin Morgan When we take prisoners from other worlds we are not cruel. We let their bodies die. They become words, filtered into air. We became words, we infiltrate the air. I know sometimes in the long midnights we throw open a window. It is hot, the bluish branches are all motionless. We cannot sleep. And some poor word creeps in. Cold, blue was your skin when I crept in. The mines are stiff with gold, our treasuries are locked and locked and locked, our guards are guarded by passwords we’ve suborned with baseless hopes. Deep in the vaults I am the password, hope. Even you might tremble at our plans, great lords. What do we care for life that comes and goes as we sit in our iron seats? We’re armed; there are no dragons; time is long. We shout, and words come singing with our wine. They shout. We sing the curdling of the wine. Astronomers once said our sun was dying. Where are they now? Our towers blaze and stare. We made them words to wander with the wind. We warned you, in the rising of the wind. You know you’ll never see your world again? Threats, bribes, tears, guns you can put away. No urns – no dust! Watch me at the switch, and then you can complain like nightingales for all the sense dead words will ever speak. Your thrones are death. Ours is the reign of speech.

When we take prisoners from other worlds
we are not cruel. We let their bodies die.
They become words, filtered into air…

—Edwin Morgan, “Twilight of a Tyranny”
a #ScienceFiction #poem from COLLECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 1997
#bookologythursday #poetry
www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

The Death of Marilyn Monroe by Edwin Morgan What innocence? Whose guilt? What eyes? Whose breast? Crumpled orphan, nembutal bed, white hearse, Los Angeles, DiMaggio! Los Angeles! Miller! Los Angeles! America! That Death should seem the only protector – That all arms should have faded, and the great cameras and lights become an inquisition and a torment – That the many acquaintances, the autograph-hunters, the inflexible directors, the drive-in admirers should become a blur of incomprehension and pain — That lonely Uncertainty should limp up, grinning, with bewildering barbiturates, and watch her undress and lie down and in her anguish call for him! call for him to strengthen her with what could only dissolve her! A method of dying, we are shaken, we see it. Strasberg! Los Angeles! Olivier! Los Angeles! Others die and yet by this death we are a little shaken, we feel it, America. Let no one say communication is a cantword. They had to lift her hand from the bedside telephone. But what she had not been able to say perhaps she had said. “All I had was my life. I have no regrets, because if I made any mistakes, I was responsible. There is now – and there is the future. What has happened is behind. So it follows you around? So what?” – This to a friend, ten days before. And so she was responsible. And if she was not responsible, not wholly responsible, Los Angeles? Los Angeles? Will it follow you around? Will the slow white hearse of the child of America follow you around?

What innocence? Whose guilt? What eyes? Whose breast?
Crumpled orphan, nembutal bed,
white hearse, Los Angeles…

—Edwin Morgan, “The Death of Marilyn Monroe”
from CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020
#BookWormSat #C20 #poem #poetry
www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

Gealach Ùr Somhairle MacGill-Eain Cuiridh mi làmh air corran na gealaich agus òrd ceann-chruaidh thairis air an òr f hann is troimhe: is canadh Dia gur h-e an toibheum. Brat crò-dhearg air a chùlaibh, suaicheantas dòchais is dùile, meirghe ’chinne-daonna ’g èirigh, solas ùr laist’ anns na speuran. A New Moon Sorley MacLean I will put a handle on the sickle of the moon and a steel-headed hammer over the feeble gold and through it: and let God call it blasphemy. A blood-red banner behind, emblem of hope and expectation, the standard of mankind arising, a new star lit in Heaven.

Cuiridh mi làmh air corran na gealaich
agus òrd ceann-chruaidh thairis
air an òr f hann is troimhe:
is canadh Dia gur h-e an toibheum…

—Somhairle MacGill-Eain, “Gealach Ùr”
in Sorley MacLean: Collected Poems, @carcanet.bsky.social 2017
#BookWormSat #C20 #poetry
www.carcanet.co.uk/978184777171...

Incubator Iain Crichton Smith The tiny baby sleeps in a cage of wires. Lights blink on and off: its legs are thin as matches, and its hair a fuzz of limpid gold. Sometimes it arches its tiny body, stretches itself and yawns, delicate as an egg in that machinery which sings its own quiet tune. Machine, you are my mother now, you feed with the slow drop of time. It is warm here, sleepless mother, raise me to run one day with my leather schoolbag among blossoms on a day of lessons and fire. Wakeful machinery, be good to me, hear me if I don't breathe, and ring your alarm bell, the panic of your kind breast of steel. Machine, let us sleep together, on the bosom of the night, till I grow tall, till I leave you and seek soft human arms.

The tiny baby sleeps in a cage of wires.
Lights blink on and off:

its legs are thin as matches, and its hair
a fuzz of limpid gold…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Incubator”
in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2021
#BookWormSat #C20 #poem #poetry
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This month we're publishing The Natural Way by Roma Havers!🦎

Get 10% off with code FEBBOOKS10 here:
www.carcanet.co.uk/978180017546...

Until 23:59pm tonight get 25% off two of our upcoming titles when pre-ordering via Waterstones!

Enter code FEB26 at the Waterstones website checkout.

Get Among Communists: ☄️
www.waterstones.com/book/among-c...

Get Before Violence:🔵
www.waterstones.com/book/before-...

Last chance to pre-order!

We're overjoyed to be named a Small Press of the Year Finalist for North England in the 2026 British Book Awards!🎉

Congratulations to our fellow finalists⭐

#Nibbies #BritishBookAwards

Congratulations to Katherine Horrex, who has been awarded a Jerwood Fellowship at @newwritingnorth.bsky.social!🎉

Three fellowships were awarded, with each writer receiving a bursary of £10,000 and a bespoke package of support over the course of a year.

Well done Katherine!🎉

From today until 23:59pm on Friday 20 February get 25% off two of our upcoming titles when pre-ordering via Waterstones!

Enter code FEB26 at the Waterstones website checkout.

Get Among Communists: ☄️
www.waterstones.com/book/among-c...

Get Before Violence:🔵
www.waterstones.com/book/before-...

Edwin Morgan Darwin in the Galapagos (1835 AD) It was a cool day for the equator as I clambered whistling over the clinker. Clouds had brought a shower across the shore. Grey black scoured and pitted rocks glistened, and so did an iguana eyeing me lazily with its wet crest bristling. I saw the drag-marks of a giant tortoise – what a dogged message thrusting into the thicket! And the air was bright with birds, well, bright and dark – green, brown, yellow – little birds, finches flirting their few inches, drenching the freshness with a spray of chatter and chirm, with a charm peculiar to these islands, these Incantadas I met a young man in a floppy hat who stopped and smiled; he too had charm. “My finches,” he said, “you are watching my finches.” We sat on an old stump, I cherish the moment. A man both ingenuous and ingenious, a genius indeed, enthusiastic, shy, well no, not really shy, but modest, that was a type I could talk to for ever. “These finches – all different,” he said. “They have become separate species, and why is that? They had some ancestor in Ecuador but here their beaks have changed to match their food – small seeds, big seeds, nectar, and do you know there is one that makes a tool of cactus spines to ferret grubs from tree-cracks? Oh I can hardly sleep for excitement! Nothing is immutable, life changes, we evolve. Process is gorgeous, is it not! Process is progress, don‘t you see!” He taps my arm, his eyes shine. I agree. Time breaks in great waves as we speak. And look, a finch on the back of a tortoise as if it had been listening lifts its beak and begins a singing so piercing it gives no end to that beginning.

I met a young man in a floppy hat
who stopped and smiled; he too had charm.
“My finches,” he said, “you are watching my finches.”

—Edwin Morgan, “Darwin in the Galapagos (1835 AD)”
published in A BOOK OF LIVES, @carcanet.bsky.social 2007
#DarwinDay #poem #poetry

When you go Edwin Morgan When you go, if you go, and I should want to die, there's nothing I’d be saved by more than the time you fell asleep in my arms in a trust so gentle I let the darkening room drink up the evening, till rest, or the new rain lightly roused you awake. I asked if you heard the rain in your dream and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.

When you go,
if you go,
and I should want to die,
there’s nothing I’d be saved by
more than the time
you fell asleep in my arms…

—Edwin Morgan, “When You Go”
CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020
#ValentinesDay #LGBTQ #LGBTQplusHM
#BookWormSat
#poem
www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

Strawberries Edwin Morgan There were never strawberries like the ones we had that sultry afternoon sitting on the step of the open french window facing each other your knees held in mine the blue plates in our laps the strawberries glistening in the hot sunlight we dipped them in sugar looking at each other not hurrying the feast for one to come the empty plates laid on the stone together with the two forks crossed and I bent towards you sweet in that air in my arms abandoned like a child from your eager mouth the taste of strawberries in my memory lean back again let me love you let the sun beat on our forgetfulness one hour of all the heat intense and summer lightning on the Kilpatrick hills let the storm wash the plates

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window…

—Edwin Morgan, “Strawberries”🍓
CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020
#ValentinesDay #poetry #LGBTQ #LGBTQplusHM 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
#BookWormSat
www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

Congratulations to @brambrella.bsky.social whose collection Fower Pessoas has been longlisted for the 2025 Highland Book Prize!🎉

This annual award celebrates literature that comes from the rich landscape and culture of the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

Well done to Colin!🎉

Congratulations to Richard Gwyn who has been awarded the 2025 Premio Valle Inclán Award by @societyofauthors.bsky.social for his translation of Invisible Dog by Fabio Morábito!🎉

Richard will receive a prize of £3,000 for his win.

Well done Richard!🎉

Iain Crichton Smith Neighbour Build me a bridge over the stream to my neighbour’s house where he is standing in dungarees in the fresh morning. O ring of snowdrops spread wherever you want and you also blackbird sing across the fences. My neighbour, if the rain falls on you, let it fall on me also from the same black cloud that does not recognise gates.

Build me a bridge over the stream
to my neighbour’s house
where he is standing in dungarees
in the fresh morning…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Neighbour”
published in NEW COLLECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2011
#poem #poetry
www.carcanet.co.uk/978185754960...

NANCY AND THE TORPEDO. Nancy found an entire torpedo in the forest just lying there like a beached whale, coated in wet leaves and decorated with glittering snail trails. “It’s a fucking torpedo,” she said. “Is it... live?” I said. I didn’t know how torpedoes worked. Were they like mines? “It’s inert,” she said, suddenly an expert, “torpedoes don’t explode on land, everyone knows that.” She whistled like a plumber surveying a damp patch, “He’s a beauty alright. I reckon he weighs at least 600 pounds. 640, I’d say.” “He?” I said, but Nancy was already straddling it, spanking its rudder like the rump of a prize horse. “What’s a torpedo doing in a forest?” Nancy rolled her eyes. “You always ask the most obvious questions, don’t you? Can’t you just enjoy the moment?” She’d already unzipped her trousers

and was touching herself, grinding up against the girth of the weapon and groaning gently. “Careful,” I said. Her orgasm gathered to a scream. She pressed her sweating face on the warhead and fell asleep on top of it. The torpedo precisely matched the length of her body. To my tired gaze, it seemed as if they were both breathing, Nancy and the torpedo, their chests rising and falling together like unsuspecting ocean waves. I pictured them both in action, underwater. Nancy’s legs wrapped around its speeding shaft, her red eyes fixed like sniper dots on the target ahead, a string of bubbles flying out behind her like a chiffon scarf. Eventually she woke, refreshed and cheerful, patted the torpedo goodbye, hoisted on her backpack and we continued our journey as if nothing had happened. “Where are we going?” she’d ask, every ten minutes or so. “We’ve just got to keep moving,” I’d reply, pointing

in some arbitrary direction and striding with purpose, trying to channel the sexual energy of a self-propelled missile, “Keep on moving.” The dread swished around my gums like someone else’s tongue. If I had owned a penis it would have secretly shriveled in my pants. “We’ve passed this clearing before,” Nancy said. “Different clearing,” I said. “Those are our footprints from four days ago,” she said. “Different footprints,” I said. Then we saw the torpedo. Nancy laughed. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s a different torpedo?” It was getting dark and cold. “I love you. I just love you so much,” I said, as Nancy remounted, hugging it and whispering into its back, her mouth almost kissing the metal. That’s when I lost it. “I’M SORRY I’M NOT A FUCKING TORPEDO!” “I can’t... blast through shit I’m lost and I’m useless and I’ve got no fucking idea where I am or what I’m doing. There. I said it. Go ahead and dump me because I’m a piece of shit.”

There was a long silence. Nancy straightened her spine like a dressage rider, looked at me for an age then said, “How many times do I have to prove it to you?” “Prove what?” I said. She sighed, “What could be more useless and impotent than a dud torpedo in a forest?” “I don’t understand,” I said. She peeled a snail from its propeller and threw it at me. “I know exactly who you are,” she said, slapping the steel, “you and him are headed in the same direction.” “You mean, nowhere?” She unzipped her trousers and reached down. Fat tears appeared on her cheeks like rain. I didn’t understand why she was crying. “You stupid idiot,” she said, her breath quickening as she rubbed and grinded, “Can’t you see I’m doing this for you? Can’t you see I’m exploding for the both of us?” Caroline Bird

“I pictured them both in action, / underwater. Nancy’s legs wrapped around / its speeding shaft, her red eyes fixed like sniper / dots on the target ahead, a string of bubbles / flying out behind her like a chiffon scarf.” — @carolinebirduk.bsky.social, “Torpedo” @carcanet.bsky.social

The Loch Ness Monster’s Song by Edwin Morgan Sssnnnwhuffffll? Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl? Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl. Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl fl fl – gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gm. Hovoplodok – doplodovok – plovodokot-doplodokosh? Splgraw fok fok splgrafhatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok! Zgra kra gka fok! Grof grawff gahf? Gombl mbl bl – blm plm, blm plm, blm plm, blp.

Sssnnnwhuffffll?
Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?
Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl.
Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl fl fl…

—Edwin Morgan, “The Loch Ness Monster’s Song”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020
#WyrdWednesday #poem #poetry
www.carcanet.co.uk/978178410996...

Say hello to our February titles! 🐟

Get 10% off these titles with code FEBBOOKS10 until the end of the month! Order here: 🔗
tinyurl.com/yc8mt63m

Graeme Richardson's poetry collection Dirt Rich arrived today and first impressions are excellent
#poetry
@carcanet.bsky.social

Edwin Morgan Je ne regrette rien in memory of Edith Piaf Smoky sky. In autumn wind I stroll by the quays in the last light, my coat flaps, flaps, wet chestnut leaves spatter the Seine. I glance in a window and touch my hair, yes I am tiny as they say, tiny as a sparrow. Now the lights come on. I stand under the lamp, turn up my collar in a circle of rain and wait for you. It’s all beginning again. Dead leaves or spring it comes back, it begins. How could I struggle? When you held me, your shoulders were a wall, I sheltered in your shadow, it began. They say I couldn’t count my men – in thirty years I couldn’t count them! But who counts years? Count the years I was blind? Dandled in a brothel? Taught by whores? Count the prayers that gave me my sight at Lisieux? Or the heartbeats of my daughter, in thousands, when I bore her at fourteen till she starved and died? Count the crusts I’ve had, or those I’ve given? The gutters I’ve sung in, or the great halls? Count the glasses I’ve drunk? Count the beds I’ve lain in, the lips I’ve kissed? I can’t count the surgeons who’ve opened me – do you think my lovers are in a book? Do you want me to start counting tears? Count what? The cost? What cost? I won! No! let the men that had me go their ways. I regret nothing, nothing. Some were kind. But I don’t care if they were kind! I don’t remember if it was bad. I don’t keep the past in my pocket.

I’ve paid for it all, I’ve forgotten it all. I’ve paid for it all, I’ve forgotten it all. I strike a match to my memories, they light a fire and disappear. I warm my arms tonight the fire begins the stars come out yes it begins I am forty-five it begins again I hear his step yes it begins his broad shoulders glisten through the rain I can see the dead cigarette in his firm mouth he throws it aside it begins and I regret nothing We sway in the rain, he crushes my mouth. What could I regret if a hundred times of parting struck me like lightning if this lightning of love can strike and strike again!

Smoky sky.
In autumn wind
I stroll by the quays
in the last light…

—Edwin Morgan, “Je ne regrette rien: in memory of Edith Piaf”
1st published in THE SECOND LIFE, @edinburghup.bsky.social 1968
reprinted in COLLECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2012
#LGBTplusHM 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

Answerlands by Joseph Minden: London Book Launch - Carcanet Press Join Joseph Minden on February 28th in London to celebrate the launch of his latest collection, Answerlands!

On Saturday 28 February at 7pm, join Joseph Minden at Housmans in London for the launch of his latest collection, Answerlands. Joseph will be joined by 4 other poets, who will be performing readings of their own.

Register for free tickets, or find out more here:
www.carcanet.co.uk/events/answe...