In 2023 we are excited to welcome three poets to our stable: Julian Bishop, Viv Fogel and Katrina Dybzynska.
Julian Bishop's full poetry collection opens 2023 with an ecopoetry focus on Jan 13th. Julian Bishop raises ‘an army of stubborn weeds’ in this dark but sometimes humorous ecopoetry collection. From the bowels of Whitechapel in London, to the intricacies of jellyfish, Bishop brings to life the most important fight known to man: climate change, documenting the changes to our planet and the attitudes of humanity across the globe towards it.
"You can almost feel your own breath fluttering while you read it, such is the skill of the writing" - Seán Hewitt, Poets & Players Prize Judge
About the Author
Julian Bishop has had a lifelong interest in ecology and worked for a time as Environment Reporter for BBC Wales. He's now a member of the collective group Poets For The Planet. A former runner-up in the Ginkgo Prize for Eco Poetry, he's been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize.
Then on February 28th we are excited to present 'Imperfect Beginnings' by Viv Fogel, a brave and vulnerable collection covering adoption, wartime and reasons to be hopeful, reasons to love the world we find ourselves in.
Imperfect Beginnings lays its poems out to rest on uncertain terrain. Visa paperwork deadlines hang in the air. New-borns, torn too early from their mother’s breast, learn to adapt to harsh guardianship. From narrative poems such as ‘My Father Sold Cigarettes To The Nazis’, Fogel takes us on a journey throughout history, spanning ancestry, wartime, adoption and peacetime as life, finally, settles.
About the Author
Viv Fogel’s poems have been published in various magazines and anthologies since the mid-70’s. She has a collection Without Question 2006 and two pamphlets (Witness 2013 and How it is … 2018) Her poems and her work are influenced by having been adopted by refugee Holocaust survivors. London based, once an art teacher, involved with community, social housing and education projects, and since the mid-80’s has worked as a psychotherapist. She is a grandmother to 3 dual-heritage grandchildren.
On March 31st we welcome our second pamphlet winner from the Aryamati Prize 2022, Katrina Dybzynska and 'Secrets of the Dictator's Wife'. In this poetry pamphlet, we are privy to the secrets of a Dictator's Wife. Is she complicit? Do we trust her? She wonders if she has already reached the turning point of morality. It seems she will have to choose a side.
About the Author
Katrina Dybzynska is a nomadic writer published internationally (among others, Mslexia, the London Reader, Poethead, Fly on the Wall Press, Lucent Dreaming) and awarded in 20 competitions. She is a BA-MA Researcher at Global Centre for Advanced Studies. She is passionate about the narratives of ecopoetry, uncivilisation and decolonization. She likes to write from the edges, usually of the Irish cliffs she parks her campervan too close to.
She has just completed working on a poetry collection that explores power, resistance, and compliance dynamics, Secrets of the Dictator’s Wife. She also runs wild creativity retreats in Andalusia: https://katdybzynska.wixsite.com/page
Soon we will be sharing an exciting poem from the collection and hear Katrina read for our YouTube channel.
Want to review one of our 2023 poetry publications or interview an author? Get in touch at flyonthewallpress@hotmail.co.uk and we will see what we can do!