A new anthology bringing together the work of Stroud-based poets has been launched during the town’s first poetry festival in 35 years. All profits from sales of Flowers for Memory will help fund next year’s Dobunni Poetry Festival.
The collection was unveiled by editor Adam Horovitz and publisher Jason Conway on the opening night of the inaugural festival. The launch was held at the Yard Gallery in Withey’s Yard, where a large gathering of poets and festival supporters assembled before two days of poetry in Stroud.
Those attending included Stroud’s new mayor, Louisa Stinton, and the town’s MP, Simon Opher, alongside what the source describes as a “plethora of poets”. The event marked the arrival of a new anthology as the festival began its first edition.
What is in the anthology?
Flowers for Memory contains 40 poems. The contributors are Stroud-based poets who have attended Horovitz’s poetry classes at the Trinity Rooms in Stroud. The book was edited by Horovitz and published by Conway’s The Daydream Academy.
The poems range widely in tone and subject. They are described as often rhapsodic and sometimes mournful, while also being beautiful and full of rhythms associated with dance, breath and nature. The collection also includes playful and unexpected images: in one of its surreal turns, Pleistocene megafauna stagger out of the deep past and invade Waitrose.
The anthology’s humour extends to a haiku described as arriving in the “gleeful throes of exiting stage left”. The varied material reflects the range of voices brought together in the collection and the festival’s wider focus on poetry.
“It was a pleasure to assemble these poems and make them sing together on the page,” said Adam Horovitz.
Horovitz said the anthology was assembled in record time to add further voices to the festival programme. In particular, he said, it gave space to writers who are at the beginning of their writing lives.
He also has a connection with Stroud’s earlier poetry scene. Horovitz co-organised the first Stroud Poetry Festival in 1991 with JoJo Mehta and Gaius and Imogen Moore. The new anthology and festival therefore follow an earlier local poetry event after a gap of 35 years.
How to buy Flowers for Memory
The anthology is priced at £10. Copies are available from Borderless Books in Stroud, while online orders can be placed through the Dobunni Poetry Festival website.
Money raised through the book will not be distributed as profit to the organisers. Instead, all profits from the anthology will go into a fund for next year’s Dobunni Festival.
“The aim of Flowers for Memory, which Jason and I put together in record time, was to add even more voices to the mix, many of whom are just at the start of their writing life.”
Horovitz described the proceeds as a small seed for the continued encouragement of new voices in the Stroud District. The anthology consequently serves both as a record of local writers and as a practical contribution towards keeping the Dobunni festival running in future years.