It needed Black Pepper
Black Pepper and poetry
Cordite, No. 2, 1997
It was a dark and stormy poetry scene in mid 1995 when Black Pepper commenced publishing poetry with its second title, the Anne Elder award-winning Michelangelo's Prisoners by Jennifer Harrison. Pearson and Gail Hannah, Black Pepper is a press which actively seeks out new talents amongst its poets with several titles published b
eing first collections, and which seeks to act as a repertory publisher, with an ongoing relationship between publisher and writer, which is important for both author and publisher. It's not much good finding a publisher only to be thrown back into a desolate marketplace with your next book. Our philosophy is straightforward, revolving around literary excellence, and giving no preference to one school of poetry over another. Indeed diversity is a feature of a list that includes Anne Fairbairn's reworking of a Persian text in An Australian Conference of the Birds, Louis De Paor's Irish language Sentences of Earth & Stone / Gobán Cré is Cloth, with en-face translations, and the single line 'dreamline' poems of John Anderson. We are interested in successful experimental work as well as more traditional poetry which shines through. A perceived lack of poetry publishers and contracting poetry lists in the late 1990s was part of the reason for the birth of Black Pepper and in a short time we became a first choice publisher for many poets. Our list continues to grow with several poetry titles per year, six in 2004. David Brooks has written that 'Poetry, I think, is rather like the frog in the ecosystem, an index of the health of the whole' and when poets as outstanding as the late John Anderson had their careers put on hold for the lack of a publisher, the frogs are being badly done by. Black Pepper has authors who have published both poetry and fiction: Navigatio the novel, by poet Alison Croggon, which came out to substantial critical acclaim, including the perceptive comment by Robert Gray that this was a long prose poem; and Mosaics & Mirrors, a poetry collection co-authored by Graham Henderson, playwright and author. The black spines of our twenty-six poetry titles to date - soon to be thirty-two titles - contain works by poets adding spice to the soup of Modern Australian poetry. Have a look at our cover designs by Gail Hannah and see what you think. Is our list to your taste, or could we add a little more Black Pepper?
