After years of writing, months of editing, weeks of painting the cover and a weekend of intense cover art-work development the very first Burning Eye Book is at the printer.

It is of course serial slam champion Ash Dickinson’s long overdue debut collection Slinky Espadrilles.

It is fitting that Ash’s book is first out of the gate as it was at a fateful meeting between Ash and Clive Birnie last summer courtesy of an event in aid of Portishead based charity Za Foundation that the first seeds of the plan to create Burning Eye took hold. Inspired by the activities of indie publishers Cargo Publishing and Eight Cuts Gallery Press, Clive was toying with the idea of starting a new press. Based in Portishead in the West of England, the idea was to focus primarily on Performance Poetry. Later in 2011 Clive pitched the concept for Burning Eye to Ash and a number of other poets. Ash signed up and by early 2012 the manuscript for Slinky Espadrilles landed.

Featuring poems about the fear of poetry, the state of premiership football, an embalmed wife/coffee table hybrid, pollution of the oceans, a love-sick fridge and knitwear for Gibbons, it is a collection polished in the harsh spotlight of a thousand performances. Some will tell you that performance poetry does not transfer to the page. If that was ever true then this collection puts that point of view on the spike for good. Time after time Ash makes us look at our world through his surreal and kooky lens, puts an arm round our shoulders and reassures us that it is OK for poetry to be funny. It is OK for poetry to entertain. The poetry police have enough on their hands mediating other disputes. No one is looking. Go on, enjoy yourselves!

Slinky Espadrilles will be published on 25th May 2012. Ash has a number of launch events lined up and will be on the road this summer promoting the book. Details of his forthcoming gigs can always be found on the Goings On page of his website www.ashdickinson.com .

In the mean time you can pre-order you copy of Slinky Espdrilles now and we will mail out to you so that your copy drops onto your doormat on 25th May.

(UK only. Non UK: email us for a shipping quote – see contact page for address.)