Oversteps Books

Jenny Hope

Jenny’s poetry has been published in a number of small-press magazines including Envoi, The Rialto, Obsessed by Pipework, and on Daisy Goodwin’s website. As well as poems about various relationships and family members, and observations of nature, this first collection also includes poems on such subjects as electricity and tarmac, a man whose greatest love is lavished on his car, and a pleasing section on food.

Sample poem: Jalfrezi

Personal website: www.poetrymaker.co.uk

Oversteps publications

Petrolhead (2010)

Now he’s gone.
The cat’s appeared
like death on a warm day,

in two minds whether the effort
was worth a face full of feathers.

Extract from “Bird”

John Stuart

John Stuart chairs the Somerset poets’ group, Fire River Poets, and runs the Poetry at The Brewhouse series of readings and poetry cafés. He speaks French, German and Russian; and he is at present working on some translations of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. John is a member of Fire River Poets group, based in Taunton.

Sample poem: Martins

Personal website: www.fireriverpoets.org.uk/poets/biog-john-stuart

Oversteps publications

Word of mouth (2009)

You will always worry when he goes missing
but even the fox respects a boy
who needs to whip thistles or pull bark

from a tree. On his wandering trail,
he may kick an adder into the brush
or his heart may stop at a tussle of wind.

Extract from “Don’t go far”

W H Petty

W H Petty was formerly President of the Society of Education Officers and was appointed CBE for services to Education. He holds a D.Litt from the University of Kent, and served as Chair of what is now Canterbury Christ Church University.

His poems have been widely published and successful in a number of competitions and his previous collections have all been well received. He has himself reviewed poetry for several literary journals.

Sample poem: Watch

Oversteps publications

But Someone Liked Them (2009)

Above the headland rock
the fists
of Winter are hammering
the earth. Black thoughts come wagging
from History,

for we also watch that room-cornered screen

and watch
another day, cruel,
go crumbling to its close.

Extract from “Closure”

Rebecca Gethin

Rebecca’s poems have appeared in numerous publications, and she gives regular readings around Devon. She lives on Dartmoor, but also spends time in the Italian Maritime Alps, where her ancestors lived; and both of these areas are reflected in her poetry. She teaches creative writing to prisoners, and has recently finished writing her first novel.

Sample poem: Night Vision

Oversteps publications

River is the Plural of Rain (2009) OUT OF PRINT

A C Clarke

A C Clarke’s many awards include the Royal Literary Fund Mentoring Scheme (2005), the Petra Kenney Award (2005) and the Brownsbank International Poetry Competition ( 2007). In 2006 she was also short-listed for the Hamish Canham Award and commended in the National Poetry Competition.

‘A troubling woman’ is A C Clarke’s third Oversteps collection. She is an active member of Scottish PEN, was the Makar for the Federation of Writers (Scotland) for 2007-2008 and she lives in Glasgow.

Sample poems

Observed
Fr Meslier on his book
Margery’s vision

Oversteps publications

A troubling woman (2017)
Fr Meslier’s Confession (2012)
Messages of Change (2008)

Glen Phillips

Glen Phillips is a nationally and internationally published Australian poet, Adjunct Associate Professor of English at Edith Cowan University, Director of the International Centre for Landscape and Language and author and editor of numerous books. His poems and stories have been published in more than 50 journals, anthologies and newspapers around the world and translated into several languages. He has written both about and with the poet John Kinsella.

Sample poems

• The Wall
• Refuge

Oversteps publications

Singing Granites (2008): poems of Devon and Gondwanaland by Anne Born and Glen Phillips, jointly published in Australia and the UK

Anne Born

Anne Born (1924-2011) was a poet and prize-winning translator. As well as writing twelve books of poetry and history, she translated over fifty books from Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. She was born in Sussex, educated at Copenhagen and Oxford universities and lived for many years in South Devon. She was the Founding Editor of Oversteps Books.

Sample poem: Stars

Oversteps publications

Singing Granites (2008): poems of Devon and Gondwanaland by Anne Born and Glen Phillips, jointly published in Australia and the UK

Charles Hadfield

Charles Hadfield has published four poetry collections: Border Disputes (1995) and Inventing Waterfalls (1997) from Salzburg University Press, Reflections (1998) from Mirage Press with photographer Marina Wilson, and The Nothing We Sink or Swim In (2002) from Oversteps. After over twenty-five years working and travelling in France, China, Tibet, Madagascar, and several African countries, in 2003 he emigrated to New Zealand where he now teaches at Auckland University. With his wife Jill he has published two travel books: Watching the Dragon, Letters from China 1983-85 (1986) and A Winter in Tibet (1988) both from Impact Books, and he is now working on a new collection of poems and prose poem . His published teaching books include Writing Games and Reading Games, both from Longman, and the Oxford Basics series including Introduction to Teaching English (2008).

Sample poem: Looking Back Down

Oversteps publications

The Nothing We Sink or Swim In (2002)

Will Daunt

Sample poem: Goodbye, Islands

Personal website: www.freewebs.com/willdauntpoetry

Oversteps publications

Running out of England (1999)

A car which threw the group who drove
against the swell of trippers, south,
recorded, in a glaze, the land
of bright and focused genocide.

from “Cumbrian Junctions”

Anne Lewis-Smith

Anne is a poet and journalist, who has edited five magazines over 30 years (including Envoi). Her first poem appeared in the Daily Mail when she was eight. Eleven collections of her poetry have been published. She has been involved with ballooning for forty years (receiving the Tissandier and Debbie Warley Awards); and she lives half-way up a mountain in Wales.

Sample poem: Sea Poetry

Oversteps publications

Every Seventh Wave (2006)

There, at the edge,
winds slice sharp
and seabirds rocket up
eighty empty metres
from cold uneasy sea.

Extract from “Dun Aonghasa, aran”