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about

When I moved to Paris in December 2009, I found many interesting anglophone poets, a lively scene, magazines, but no small press. Worse, some British, Irish and American poetry presses seemed unwilling to publish poets from their abroad. In consequence, good poets weren’t getting published.

Non–anglophone English can be an interesting source of new language. The poetry may sometimes seem odd to native speakers, but is it error, a style that’s not yet established, a different grammar, an effect a native speaker would struggle to achieve, or what? That’s why I welcome poetry from poets whose mother tongues exclude English.

Those poetry sects, civil warriors lobbing creosotic grenades, farting in general directions: I don’t care for them. I do care for interesting poetry, high quality poetry, from anywhere. I do care for different poetry, doing things well I’ve not seen done before. I do care for traditional poetry, doing the same again, very well indeed. I want to be excited by poetry, and I don’t care if it’s Stockhausen or stuck.

Books are tools for putting poems into heads. It’s the poetry, not the tool, so corrupt press books are simple. No tool is perfect; books lose sound, speech loses sight, ebooks need fuel. Corrupt press is considering other tools, but want to get it right—right for putting poems in heads, right as business practice.

You can contact the press at ">.

Incidentally, here’s the formal history: I created the press when living in Paris. I moved it to Scotland in 2012, where I incorporated it as a limited company, but wound that down in 2016 because of Brexit. Now, here in Luxembourg, I am a sole trader, trading as corrupt press.

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October 2021