In Person: 30 Poets Filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce [Paperback]

'A groundbreaking multimedia project... There really is something for everyone: the cutting and cut-up satire of Peter Reading, John Agard's hymns to diversity, Selima Hill's funny, frightening trawls through the unconscious... Audio-visual recordings are rare indeed, and the In Person DVDs offer an unprecedented wealth of footage... Here is CK Williams, reading a sinuous, shocking piece like "The Gaffe" with tone and timing so perfect you wonder if you ever understood it before. James Berry's assumed patois when he reads "Defendant in a Jamaican Court" brings the voice - "Yes I did chop him, sar" - into terrible life. The excellent Naomi Shihab Nye perches on a staircase, as if to emphasise her poems' gentle refusal of existing phrases, existing positions, her eyebrows dancing between puzzlement and knowledge, and says slowly: "I missed the day / when it was said / others should not have / certain weapons, but we could." There are studious, intense readings by Maura Dooley and Philip Levine, generous, warm performances from Imtiaz Dharker and Menna Elfyn, and WN Herbert singing the entirety of "Bad Shaman Blues". It is an exhilarating, fascinating six hours, rounded off by a special short of Ken Smith frying breakfast in his kitchen, then reading "Three Docklands fragments" against a display of the wooden masks he used to make. --Frances Leviston, The Guardian

What makes In Person so exceptional is that the book is accompanied by two DVDs, containing six hours of the poets reading all the poems in the collection. Such is its impact that it is impossible to imagine that it has never been done before... What Astley and Robertson-Pearce have created for poetry readers is an opportunity to witness some of the most important poets in the English language giving voice to their own work... Disseminating poetry through this free-wheeling, 21st-century medium feels revolutionary, and yet this decision to incorporate the ever-changing present fits with the impetus to forge something of historical worth...readings from poets as diverse as Fleur Adcock, James Berry, Taha Muhammad Ali and Galway Kinnell are testimony to this extraordinary archival value. The written word winds through their varying accents and rhythms, with many poems read in two languages to give the reader a true sense of the sonic beauty inherent in the work in its original tongue. It is a gift to poetry lovers on the birthday of one of their most beloved publishing houses, with Bloodaxe's 30 extraordinary years celebrated through these 30 extraordinary voices... With its international launch taking place in Dublin today, In Person is testimony to the human voice that is poetry, a fitting celebration of an art that has reflected and shaped human experience since the birth of language, and a publishing house that is helping to make it heard. --Fiona McCann, Irish Times

With six hours of the poets reading their own work, the video version is a wonderful companion - or is it the other way round? - to the print version edited by Bloodaxe founder Neil Astley. Together, as a tidy package, they provide "your own personal interactive poetry festival"... In between Adcock and Zephaniah we find Helen Dunmore, Imtiaz Dharker, Selima Hill, Jackie Kay, Gwyneth Lewis, Maura Dooley, Penelope Shuttle, Jane Hirshfield and many more, captured lightly, intimately and unpretentiously, the settings as varied as the poets themselves. The initial viewing is deceptively low-key; the second is utterly moving. --Daneet Steffens, Mslexia

DVD-BOOK. Thirty poets from around the world read to you in person... This is a new concept in publishing: your own personal poetry festival brought into your home. Each poet reads to you for about ten minutes - up to half a dozen poems chosen from across the range of their work. IN PERSON is a collaboration between Bloodaxe Books and award-winning film-maker Pamela Robertson-Pearce. Her style of filming combines directness and simplicity, sensitivity and warmth - the perfect combination for these intimate readings. It is as if the poet were sitting in the room with you, reading just to you, and sometimes saying a few things about the poems. Apart from one recording taken from a live public performance, all the films present informal, one-to-one readings. They enhance your appreciation of the poetry. You hear how the poems sound; you see how the poets read and present their work. T.S. Eliot once described poetry as "one person talking to another", while W.H. Auden believed it was essential to hear poetry read aloud, for "no poem, which when mastered, is not better heard than read is good poetry". IN PERSON presents the oral art of poetry in that spirit. There are four hours of readings on two DVDs pouched inside the back cover, and all the poems are printed in the book. IN PERSON celebrates 30 years of poetry from a pioneering press. Founded in 1978, Bloodaxe has published nearly a thousand titles by three hundred writers. Until now you wouldn't be able to see or hear readings by many of Bloodaxe's international range of poets. In Person makes that possible for the first time, presenting readings by 30 essential voices from Britain, Ireland, America, Spain, Hungary, Palestine, Pakistan, China, New Zealand and the Caribbean. Four out of the 30 short films present the poets' work bilingually. Menna Elfyn's reading alternates between her Welsh poems and their English translations. Joan Margarit reads in Catalan in tandem with his translator Anna Crowe reading her English translations. Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali reads in Arabic and then re-inhabits each poem as it is read in English by his translator Peter Cole. Yang Lian introduces his work in English, and reads the poems in Chinese. The anthology presents all their poems in both languages in a parallel-text format, enabling you to follow either language as the poems are read on the film. All the other readings are in English only, and in many varieties of English which will add greatly to your enjoyment and appreciation of the poetry: not just poems read in Scottish, Welsh and Irish English by Jackie Kay, W.N. Herbert, Gwyneth Lewis, Brendan Kennelly and Micheal O'Siadhail, but also George Szirtes' Hungarian-inflected English, Benjamin Zephaniah's melding of Jamaican and Birmingham, and the Caribbean lilt of John Agard and James Berry. The musical range of American voices is just as diverse, ranging from urban Detroit (Philip Levine) to the Ozark Mountains (C.D. Wright). There's also a "bonus track": a short film of Bloodaxe s first poet, Ken Smith, made by Ivor Bowen just before Ken's untimely death. IN PERSON includes filmed readings by: Fleur Adcock, John Agard, Elizabeth Alexander, James Berry, David Constantine, Imtiaz Dharker, Maura Dooley, Helen Dunmore, Menna Elfyn, W.N. Herbert, Selima Hill, Jane Hirshfield, Jackie Kay, Brendan Kennelly, Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Gwyneth Lewis, Joan Margarit, Adrian Mitchell, Taha Muhammad Ali, Naomi Shihab Nye, Micheal O Siadhail, Peter Reading, Penelope Shuttle, Ken Smith, Anne Stevenson, George Szirtes, C.K. Williams, C.D. Wright, Yang Lian and Benjamin Zephaniah.