Publishing challenge for city’s poets

Members of the public are being invited to take part in the creation of his new book through supporting an old form of Publishing.

In anticipation of Londonderry’s forthcoming contribution to the wider community through the UK City of Culture 2013, and as a positive way of contributing to the long tradition of making and sharing poems, Sam Burnside is planning to publish a special selection of old and new poems by using subscription publishing, and a “partnership between author and reader”, as he calls it.

“Subscription publishing was a generally accepted method of publication during the seventeenth century when it was popular in Ireland. There are numerous examples of Belfast and Londonderry printed and published books. It was in essence, a partnership between author and reader, with the ‘middlemen’ - agents, publishers and booksellers - having little or no role. As a way of acknowledging the subscribers’ support and involvement authors included printed lists of subscribers in their books.

“The works typically sold by subscription in the 17th Century were atlases, geographies, and histories, especially Bible histories, but important works of literature were also published in this manner. Among them was, for example, the first illustrated edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost, published in 1688. Its subscriber list names more than five hundred prominent individuals,” said Sam.

“This new volume will contain a list of the names of all those subscribers who have supported its publication. This will be a tangible expression of a real and active interest in literature, in sympathy with the long tradition of poetry, from the time of Columcille through to the present day, that marks this city’s cultural history.

“It will stand as an affirmation of the importance of enabling access to our common culture as we enter into the community-based celebrations of the 2013 Year of Culture. It is a statement of the importance of direct and personal involvement in creative endeavour,” he said.

Anyone who is interested and would like to support this experiment is invited to go online at www.samburnside.co.uk/shop.html.

The book will contain work selected from six previous publications, together with new poems.

Over the course of his career, Sam Burnside has received a variety of awards including the McCrea Literary Award, in October, 1986; the Bass Ireland Arts Award, in the nominated discipline of Literature, December, 1987; the Hennessy Award for Literature, November, 1989 and the Allingham Award for Poetry.

Mr Burnside was made an MBE for his services to the arts in 2012.