Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements are due to the editors of the following magazines, journals, newspapers and anthologies in which some of these poems first appeared: Agenda, Ambit, Arts Council England Writers’ Awards 2003, Best British Poetry 2012, The Forward Book of Poetry 1995, The Forward Book of Poetry 2007, The Forward Book of Poetry 2008, The Forward Book of Poetry 2012, The Dalhousie Review, The Guardian, The Independent, The Independent on Sunday, London Review of Books, The Malahat Review, The Manhattan Review, The New Republic, New Statesman, Oxford Poetry, PN Review, The Poetry Book Society Anthology, Poetry Durham, Poetry International, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry London, Poetry London Newsletter, Poetry Review, The Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Salt Magazine, Slate Magazine, Stand Magazine, Southwest Review, The Spectator, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, Thumbscrew, The London Magazine, London Magazine, New Writing 8, New Writing 10, New Writing 11, New Writing 12, The North, Wascana Review, The Warwick Review.
Acknowledgment is made to Seren for permission to reprint the poems in this book which first appeared in Fellini Beach, Competing with the Piano Tuner, To the God of Rain and The Blood Choir. Acknowledgement is made to Shoestring Press for permission to reprint the poems in this book which first appeared in Priest Skear and Madame Sasoo Goes Bathing.
As a collection-in-progress The Blood Choir (or rather fourteen of the poems contained in it) won an Arts Council England Writers’ Award in April 2003. For the Seven Hundred and Forty Ninth Species of Barbed Wire, The Language School, The Uses of Pepper and The Blood Choir appeared in the anthology which resulted from that award. I am very grateful for the Hawthornden Fellowship (April-May, 2002) during the expansive space of which To the God of Rain was completed and The Blood Choir developed. Competing with the Piano Tuner was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation for Summer 1998, and long-listed for the Whitbread Poetry Prize. To the God of Rain was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Spring 2003. The Blood Choir won an Arts Council England Writer’s Award as a collection-in-progress, was a winner in the Smith/Doorstop Pamphlet Competition, was a Poetry
