About Smokestack Books
Smokestack aims to keep open a space for what is left of the English radical poetic tradition in the twenty-first century.
Smokestack champions poets who are unfashionable, radical, left-field and working a long way from the metropolitan centres of cultural authority.
Smokestack is interested in the World as well as the Word; believes that poetry is a part of and not apart from society; argues that if poetry does not belong to everyone it is not poetry.
Smokestack’s list includes books by Katrina Porteous, Georgi Gospodinov, Alison Fell, Sebastian Barker and Martín Espada, new poetry from Guatemala, France, Siberia and the other USA, as well as new editions of radical classics by Heinrich Heine and Nicola Vaptsarov.
‘Ah-oh, smokestack lightning
Shinin’, just like gold
Why don’t ya hear me cryin’?’
Howling Wolf
‘and on every side
smokestacks were dancing on rooftops.’
Vladimir Mayakovsky
‘The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack…
Type of the modern—emblem of motion and power—pulse of the continent,
For once come serve the Muse and merge in verse.’
Walt Whitman
“Smokestack Books is a welcome addition to the poetry publishing world.” – Critical Survey
“...don’t assume that books from left of centre Middlesbrough press Smokestack will be about whippets and Federation ale.” – Sphinx
“Smokestack has a great squad of radical poets.” – Adrian Mitchell
Featured Titles
 | Beans in Snow by Jennifer Copley Beans in Snow is a stunning exploration of the world of childhood, its consolations and cruelties, real and imagined. £7.95 |  | book of days by Linda France At the beginning of 2006 Linda France set herself the challenge of writing a renga verse every day for twelve months. Adapting this 10th century Japan... £7.95 |
 | Hole by Kathleen Kenny Kathleen Kenny was brought up in a family where her father and her brother never spoke to each other. Hole is the story of a lifelong struggle to understand the unspoken secrets contained in the silences of her childhood, to measure the damage and the hurt of its 'strange normality'. £7.95 |  | Seeds Of Fire: Contemporary Poetry from the Other USA by Jon Anderson Seeds of Fire brings together the work of over fifty poets from the other USA - they bear witness against the forces of imperial slaughter, environmental catastrophe and social disintegration. £7.95 |
Online Catalogue:
Contact Details:
w: http://www.smokestack-books.co.ukt: +44 (0) 1642 813997
PO Box 408
Middlesbrough
TS5 6WA
United Kingdom