Kathy Pimlott

November 2024

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After the rites and sandwiches, my third pamphlet with the lovely Emma Press, goes on sale this month with publication on 7th November. I'm indebted to much-loved poet and teacher Peter Sansom for his kind words of endorsement, "Heartfelt but clear-eyed and technically assured, this is a powerful and moving collection by a remarkable poet writing in extremis.” (Though I can't really take on 'remarkable'). 

The poems in this small collection circle around a sudden accidental death – its shocking actuality, the aftermath, the admin. Yes, it is sad and painful but I hope it is leavened by lyricism and even a little humour. I wouldn't describe myself as a confessional poet, being quite a private person, but I do use poetry - reading and writing - to try to unpick those things that snag and catch tenaciously.  And once it's written down, it becomes, somehow, its own thing, separate from me, which I can share.  I have written a blog for The Emma Press website in which I talk about the process of writing the pamphlet and the mixed feelings around it.

I will be having two launch events this month - one on-line at 7pm on 14th November, for which you can register here and one in person on Saturday 23rd November at 4pm at the Phoenix Garden in London, at which I'm thrilled to say I will be joined in reading by Mimi Khalvati and Jacqui Saphra.

My other piece of news is that, along with Paul Stephenson and Danne Jobin, I am co-editing issue 92 of Magma, with the theme of Ownership. The submission period is 1st to 30th November. This is a first for me and I'm looking forward to reading lots of excellent poems and getting to grips with the other side of the poetry publishing mirror.  

I'm reading
Margaret Atwood's Old Babes in the Woods