VP50 David Belbin

VP50 David BelbinFrom humble, 'student hobby' beginnings in 2008, Valley Press has grown into a force to be reckoned with in UK poetry. Famed for its distinctive, no two the same cover designs, plus writing that is frequently accessible and ambitious, the press is now home to some of the UK's most exciting poetic talents. This new anthology offers a valuable overview of VP's poetry output so far. Here are fifty poems, one from each poetry title, selected by readers of

As a Trinidadian whose writing career has been spent in the UK

Paul Durcan and Rita Ann Higgins before him

but what about the spiritualist temple that Sherlock Holmes helped build or the folk dance revival that started in a Camden Hay Market or the site of the Camden Town Murder

the reader

New Hampshire

presented alongside their original Spanish versions

against the wishes of the students and parents

In many of these stories

he has given hundreds of talks on crime fiction to library

dismayed by his and his family's loss of culture

Cuba and Cape Town

the awareness of mortality and the "eerily familiar" recognitions occasioned by merely going home