The Lanterns
The Lanterns tells the story of John Jones, a nineteenth century mariner. These are poems of seafaring, desire and the conflicts between them. As Jones’s great-great-granddaughter, Lindsey Holland resurrects him, blending the known facts of his life with richly imagined likelihoods in contemporary poems which explore universal themes. Jones’s voice is insistent, describing voyages through love and loss, nature and industry, the lived eternity of ocean and the ghosts of life at home with the woman he loves.
The pamphlet includes a portfolio of poems that were shortlisted in the Manchester Poetry Competition.
‘These are questing, restless, captivating poems that take the reader on unsettling journeys. Lindsey Holland’s writing is alive to detail – the ‘claret red’ of blood, the ‘ripe fig’ of a dress – but equally attentive to mystery, to landscapes that shift and play tricks, to the ‘ache’ of the first bar of music, to all of life’s ‘unspoken necessities’. Once you voyage with The Lanterns, you won’t want to return to land.’
– Helen Mort
Particle Soup
‘In Particle Soup, Lindsey Holland writes hauntingly beautiful poems of love and fear and the non-existent space in between. To read her is to be startled by sudden eye-contact from a passerby – a glance that contains a whole alternative reality. Her imagery and rhythms engage and delight and her form thrills in both its mastery and innovation. You feel like you’ve returned from a long journey to find your home transfigured in an eternal twilight – a sense of loss, but of essential gain’.
— Luke Kennard
Sculpted: Poetry of the North West
The Sculpted anthology appeared in 2013, published under the network North West Poets. Lindsey co-edited the anthology as well as typesetting it. The anthology toured the North West, with events at partner venues including the Museum of Liverpool, The Wordsworth Trust and the Bookcase (Hebden Bridge). From the cover:
‘How is a region created and defined? How does it shape us and how do we, in turn, shape a region?
Sculpted is a definitive, ground-breaking anthology of poems by 62 of the North West’s best contemporary poets. As diverse as the area that inspired them, the poems dig beneath the skin of the region: its towns and cities, countryside, industries, history, geology, and above all, its people.
‘‘The Lake Poets are history; if you really want to take the poetic pulse of the North West, read Sculpted, a salty sassy anthology of England’s top left bits’.
— Daisy Goodwin
‘The poems are gritty, witty, wise, anarchic and tender when needed’.
— Mike Harding’
Not on Our Green Belt
Not On Our Green Belt is a pamphlet-length anthology, edited and typeset by Lindsey Holland and published through the North West Poets network.It comprises writing in opposition to unnecessary green belt development. It was given away at public meetings, in areas where, to meet government housing targets, councils redefined green belt despite the availability of brownfield land.
The anthology features work by twenty-three of Britain’s best contemporary poets including David Morley, Penelope Shuttle, Polly Atkin, Andrew Forster, Brian Wake and Alyson Hallet.
‘The anthology tackles one of the important issues of our time: how we are to build a sufficient number of new houses, while at the same time protecting our green belt. It adds a rich and valuable element to the debate, and is rightly convinced that yes, new roofs are necessary, but no, not at the cost of our countryside – our great communal masterpiece.’
— Andrew Motion