works by alan spence
Essence Press has published one book by Alan Spence.
zenscotlit
zenscotlit Taking a lead from RH Blyth and his influential Zen in English Literature and Kenneth White’s comment “If RH Blyth could find Zen in English literature, how much more might he find it in a literature more specifically Celtic?”, Alan Spence, himself a master of the haiku form, has created a selection of ‘sampled haiku’ extracted from works of Scottish literature. The writers he has mined include Robert Burns, Edwin Muir, Nan Shepherd, and Edwin Morgan. Each haiku is set on a single page to give plenty of white space to complement the minimalism of the haiku form. The poems are allowed to breathe in the white space of the page, complementing the frequent mentions of white in the poems themselves. The names of the Scottish poets, which form the titles of the poems, are in blue, to provide an energy to balance the calm, and to refer to the Scottish flag. The materials, such as the gentled textured end papers, and a linen thread hand-binding provide a tactility to quietly counterbalance the minimalism. The pamphlet is designed to appeal to the senses, the mind, and to pay respect to the richness of Scottish literature.
Shortlisted for the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award
Pamphlet | h 15mm x w 15mm; 28 pages, 13 pages printed; printed inkjet in grey and blue on 100gsm paper | endpapers in 100gsm hammer white; cover in Bockingford watercolour paper 300gsm | 2019 | introductory price £6 | purchase
less
Alan Spence is the featured poet in issue 11 of Less, a single-poem journal.
11 : Alan Spence | £4 | purchase | read more about less