Smokestack Books

Short-listed for the British Book Awards Small Press of the Year 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024.

The aim of Smokestack Books (2004-2024) was to keep open a space for what is left of the radical poetic tradition in the twenty-first century. Smokestack championed unfashionable, socialist and left-field poets working a long way from the metropolitan centres of cultural authority. Smokestack was interested in the World as well as the Word; believed that poetry is a part of and not apart from society; argued that if poetry does not belong to everyone it is not poetry.

Although Smokestack has no plans to publish any new titles, most of the back-catalogue are still available to order.

Smokestack's list includes books by John Berger, Linda France, Michael Rosen, Katrina Porteous, Ian McMillan, Kate Fox, Martin Rowson, Pnina Shinebourne, Sebastian Barker, Gerda Stevenson, Martin Hayes and Steve Ely.

Smokestack’s international list includes books by Vladimir Mayakovsky (Soviet Union), Bertolt Brecht (Germany), Gustavo Pereira (Venezuela), Guus Luijters (Netherlands), Francis Combes (France), Tawfiq Zayyad (Palestine), Olga Berggolts (Soviet Union), Winétt de Rokha (Chile), Rocco Scotellaro (Italy), Heinrich Heine (Germany), Nikola Vaptsarov (Bulgaria), Andras Mezei (Hungary), Justyna Bargielska (Poland), Louis Aragon (France), Reja-e Busailah (Palestine), Jan Carew (Guyana), Ghassan Zaqtan (Palestine), Jack Lindsay (Australia), Alexandr Tvardovsky (Soviet Union), Amir Darwish (Syria), Martín Espada (Puerto Rico/US), Goran Simic (Bosnia), Paul van Ostaijen (Belgium), Konstantin Simonov (Soviet Union), Eduardo Embry (Chile), Tasos Leivaditis (Greece), Laura Fusco (Italy), Anna Gréki (Algeria), Andrei Sen-Senko (Russia), Marcos Ana (Spain) Chawki Abdelamir (Iraq), Nicolas Calas (Greece), Farid Bitar (Palestine), İlhan Çomak (Turkey), Volker Braun (Germany), Ilya Ehrenburg (Soviet Union) and Roque Dalton (El Salvador), as well as anthologies of poetry from Palestine, Siberia, the USA, France, Algeria, the Soviet Union, Scotland, Greece, Russia, Kurdistan and Cuba.

Smokestack was also a protest at the terminal dullness of so much of the contemporary UK poetry scene, its self-importance, excitability, lack of seriousness and self-imposed isolation from the rest of society. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a positive intervention soon became a line of retreat, defeated by PR and lazy arts journalism.

During the last two decades, large sections of British economic life have been moved out of common ownership into private hands, rationed by price or simply closed down. The democratic process is blocked by inequality, authoritarianism, deceit and a narrow ideological consensus. British cultural life is blocked by the values of big business and show business.

The result is an atomised, unwelcoming and unfriendly poetry scene whose inaccessibility is hardly disguised by ritual declarations about diversity and inclusion. Conversations about poetry have been replaced by conversations about poets, discussions of tradition by accusations of plagiarism, and the language of literary criticism by the hyperbolic language of press-releases promoting corporate prizes and celebrity book-festivals.

After twenty years of running Smokestack unfunded, unpaid and single-handed, I finally ran out of good reasons to remain even on the margins of the uncomradely, uncongenial and frankly embarrassing world of contemporary British poetry.

Andy Croft

'Smokestack are to be congratulated on recognising and maintaining such a wide and varied portfolio of excellent poets. Long may it continue.'

The North

'a welcome addition to the poetry world.'

Critical Survey

'one of the most courageous little presses in Britain.'

Penniless Press

'Smokestack has a well-deserved reputation as a pioneer in publishing progressive poetry from around the globe.'

Morning Star

'Smokestack has a great squad of radical poets lined up for its first season. I predict that the team will roll like thunder, strike like lightning and electrify British poetry.'

Adrian Mitchell

'a press with formidable integrity and international reach.'

Other Poetry

'robustly resistant to the easy and the fashionable.'

Stride

'Smokestack have created a virtual place where you know you will find a certain signal and where you can play out a certain role. They have enriched the cultural offer.'

tears in the fence

'Smokestack have been quietly putting out a roster of writers for some time now which can easily face those of more well-known poetry publishers... Smokestack Books deserve our interest and support.'

Manchester Review of Books

'Where there’s Smokestack, there’s fire... unflinchingly committed to providing a platform for some of the most thought-provoking nonconformist voices in twenty-first century verse.'

Socialist History