Four Nasty Little Press poets – Luke Wright, John Osborne, Byron Vincent and Martin Figura – head to Cornwall on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 July for a couple of special showcases. The four will perform their work for an hour at The Walled Garden 11am on Saturday & Sunday) at this magical literary-cum-arts festival nestled in the Cornish countryside on the estate on the Earl of St Germans. More on Port Eliot Festival.

Hurrah and Huzzah. Nasty Little Press has signed Salena Godden.

Salena Godden is one of the biggest name on the poetry scene. She has been published in a myriad of both mainstream and art-house literary magazines and anthologies. Her long-awaited debut childhood memoir ‘Springfield Road’ will be published by Harper Collins in 2011. She is also “The General” of The Book Club Boutique, Soho’s hippest literary salon.

Nasty Little Press will publish her pamphlet in February 2011. This is undoubtably a coup for us, Salena is one of the very best poets in Britain. Whoop!

Penpusher, the uber-hip, gorgeous looking literary journal has reviewed Luke and John’s books. Sophia Blackwell had some very nice things to say. We’re brimming with pride here at Nasty HQ. Here’s the review in full:

Review of High Performance by Luke Wright and What If Men Burst In Wearing Balaclavas? by John Osborne

Though Luke Wright and John Osborne are still two young turks in the often late-blooming poetry world, in these pithy and often delightful collections we find them flirting with adulthood. Sometimes they accept it, with all its disappointments, fears and subtle joys, and sometimes they please themselves and their audience by embracing pop culture and playground invective: Wright is clearly fond of talking about things that smell of wee; and Osborne seems possessed by a pathological hatred of Neil Morrissey – it all adds a bit of colour.

Despite both poets creating worlds full of humour and irony, they are also unafraid of facing the big concepts – ‘Death, God and the Universe’ is the title of one of Osborne’s poems. This preoccupation with mortality, quiet celebrations of the commonplace, hymns to suburbia, and occasional snarls of rage and sorrow, give a strong flavour of Larkin.

This is particularly the case for Luke Wright, whose collection features ‘high windows’, a very restrained British funeral, and even a whole poem devoted to the über-anthologised lodger Mr Bleaney, though in Wright’s world he is secretly a jumpsuit-clad swinger who couldn’t give a toss what some bespectacled loser might make of him, spending his secret weekends, ‘up till dawn/ On Friday snorting coke off an arse cheek/ With three of Duran Duran’.

By the time I’d finished the first page of High Performace I’d already laughed out loud twice, but as befits such humour there are moments of pathos too and plenty of self-disgust. The manic comic’s post-show shame creeps in as the poet remembers himself ‘crying and wanking on fringe theatre stages,’ or spewing gags to his tired but tolerant friends, who sometimes wish ‘someone had breastfed Luke as a child.’

While trying to play down his considerable triumphs, occasionally he comes close to what he accuses another character of doing – ‘having his cake then satirising it’– but I wouldn’t lose his hilarious howl of self-loathing, ‘Luke’s Got A Joke.’ When it comes to anticipating his detractors, Charlie Brooker with a hangover would be hard-pushed to out-bile him:

No Luke, don’t stop Luke, we’re keen to hear more
it’s better when you say ‘Don’t mention the war!’
Forget that night out at the Comedy Store
We’d rather hear Luke do some Blackadder 4.

The poet’s struggles – with fame, ambition, himself – come to a poisonous head in ‘Mr Blank’, a poem about a crooked talent scout who offers to make him famous. Their shallow relationship is shot through with mutual self-loathing, ‘a platonic love so vacuous/it made Des’ree look like René Descartes.’ Still, his compassion for ‘Mr Blank’ lifts the poem far above a simple slagging-off, shining the same merciless light on Wright’s longings and delusions. It’s a bold move, and one that pays off.

While both books have references to festivals, the Fringe, and drinking champagne from crystal flutes, or even, in one poem of Osborne’s, pint glasses, the boys both engage with a more settled-down life in which listening to Stuart Maconie isn’t necessarily a crime.

The title poem of Osborne’s pamphlet has the protagonist fearfully imagining men in balaclavas bursting through the ‘patio doors’ into a scene of domestic bliss, setting the tone for a collection in which life is often pleasant, potentially frightening and sometimes magical. In one poem, he imagines leading a deer through the turnstile at Ealing Broadway; in another, he hacks into his company’s intranet and posts Simon Armitage poems. In reality, he frets about money, death and relationships, drinks Southern Comfort and listens to the Super Furry Animals.

What If Men Burst In Wearing Balaclavas? covers similar thematic terrain to Wright’s book, but the tone is very different. While there are fewer barnstorming performance pieces and heart-on-sleeve bits of seriousness, Osborne’s poems are funny, quietly self-assured and often more than a little sad. His gentler approach allows the reader to identify with his bemused characters, who bumble along bouncing cheques ‘like a ping-pong ball/falling from a pocket/at a funeral’, failing to fix washing machines and fantasising about a local girl who drives a Toyota Yaris, their stomachs full of butterfly wings:

I want to tell her about the butterflies
But when I try and talk to her
It’s like we’re playing hide and seek
I have got my eyes closed
And I’m counting to one hundred.

Throughout this moving, resonant collection, Osborne’s speakers console themselves by insisting that heartbreaking things can’t happen because ‘it’s Glastonbury in June’ or ‘only two weeks until we go to New York’. To quote one of his titles, ‘We’re All Going to Die’ – but yes, there will still be Glastonbury, and fajitas, The Mighty Boosh, and Hancock’s Half Hour. There’s still honey for tea, or to quote one of my favourite lines from Osborne’s title poem, ‘a case of red wine to get through/and a massive Toblerone’.

TS Eliot Award Winner and all round good guy George Szirtes has reviewed Luke Wright’s High Performance. Szirtes had this to say:

“Luke Wright on the page is funny, pretty light on his feet, tells a good story, and can compass both wit and pathos. You can read the poems without actually having to have him read them for you.”

Nice stuff. You can read the whole review here including some interesting stuff about the performance on the page.

As Spring swans in like a fashionably late it girl we’ve got our heads down at Nasty Little Press readying our third book – Barking Doggerel by Byron Vincent – for publication in May. We’ll have the cover up soon as well as a few exciting announcements regarding future books. But in the meantime we’re basking in John Osborne’s glory – a lovely little review from the Booktrust people. Read it it here.

The gloves are off once agin as Literary Death Match touches down in London town on Wednesday 24 February. This time Nasty Little Press is involved. We’re being represented by John Osborne. Who will win? Who’s most nasty?

Find out more here