Agnes Cserhati – Editor

I eat, drink, breathe poetry. Just like you.

I will teach you when to use a conjunction and when not to for effect. When to break a line with a hyphenated word, pick up the pieces in the next line, and what it means when you do. When to write poetry in full sentences and when to write in fragments. (Like I've been doing for the last three sentences if you count this one.) Same with line breaks, punctuation, and form. And why beginning a line with a conjunction is not "lazy" as you English teacher probably told you. Because if a Nobel prize-winning poet can do it - look up Seamus Heaney's "Postscript" - so can you, and I'll explain why.

Lyric poetry is a strength and I will help you express your voice.

I love to help emerging writers get poems accepted in literary magazines, and develop their debut collections. In Editorial Assessments I will look at 6+ poems and provide an overview of what works, what doesn't, and suggest the best order of poems in a complete manuscript. In Developmental Editing I will go over your poems in meticulous detail and ask you to them read aloud to check what's really got on the page. In Copy editing I will fine tune what's there. In Proofreading I will catch lingering errors. Sum total: I will do what publishing is all about.

I keep my finger on the pulse of contemporary poetry, and will help you discover how your voice and vision sits alongside or challenges what's out there.

Be authentic. Be ambitious. Be astonishing.

REVIEWS

LIMINAL by Michael Lee Rattigan, interviewed by Robert Yates (July 10, 2012): "It wasn’t even my idea to call it Liminal, actually. It came out of exchanges with my editor and her reading of the poems. The original idea was one that allows for a certain kind of range for it to float between different areas of experience, passages of life, places, and people. I wanted to allow for all of that to be pushed into this space, to cram in as much as I could to this hybridity of experience.”

IN SLOW WOODS by Gill Gregory, reviewed by Valeria Melchioretto, Tears in the Fence (March 2012): “Throughout, we find a strong sense of sensory sensibility. Gill Gregory often enhances her poems by making ekphrastic citations of artwork to back up her intent. This collection speaks to the eye and soul as well as the ear and the mind. Clearly there is an ambitious mind behind these poems, exploring complex inner worlds that can barely be expressed, and despite restraint, the result is utterly exciting.”

WHEREABOUTS by Matthew Francis, reviewed by Sarah Crown, Guardian (August 12, 2006): “Shortlisted for the Forward prize for both his previous collections and named as one of the Poetry Book Society's 20 ‘next generation poets’ in 2004, Matthew Francis already has an impressive pedigree. With this outstanding volume, his place among contemporary British poetry's aristocracy is confirmed.”