history

tall-lighthouse, established in 1999, is an independent poetry press publishing full collections of poetry, pamphlets and anthologies with over 100 titles issued from more than 60 poets.

2023 saw us reprint Mark Wynne’s Frank&Stella with additional poems & a stunning new cover featuring a Frank Auerbach self-portrait. We also published Brendan Cleary’s elegaic pamphlet last poems?.

In September ’22 we visited Prague for a special reading at The Globe Bookstore where  we published a ‘special edition’ of Czech translations of poetry from Josh, Mark & Sonya. This event was repeated in February ’23 in Brighton. The translations are available to order from our t.l.prague page. In June ’22 we published Rescue Contraptions – a new collection from Joe Duggan. February ’22 saw us publish a pamphlet from Christopher Horton – Perfect Timing and in September we published the second pamphlet from Joshua Calladine-Jones (Reconstructions) and a further pamphlet from Mark Wynne (Point Bolivar Light) is now available to purchase. 

The press has a reputation for publishing new talent, being the first in the UK to publish Helen Mort, Sarah Howe, Liz Berry, Adam O’Riordan, Rhian Edwards, Emily Berry, Kate Potts and many others.

Many poets published by tall-lighthouse moved on to full collections with major poetry publishers. These included Sarah Howe, winner of the TSEliot prize in 2015 with her Chatto&Windus collection Loop of Jade. Helen Mort whose debut full collection Division Street (Chatto&Windus) was shortlisted for the TSEliot prize as was Ailbhe Darcy with her collection Insistence (Bloodaxe). Similarly Jay Bernard and Vidyan Ravinthiran were both shortlisted for the 2020 TSEliot prize. Other tall-lighthouse poets have also been prize winners:  Emily Berry – 2013 Forward Prize for best first collection with Dear Boy (faber&faber). Liz Berry – 2014 Forward Prize for best first collection with Black Country (Chatto&Windus). Rhian Edwards won Wales Book of the Year 2013 with her collection Clueless Dogs (Seren).

In 2007 the Pilot Series of pamphlets was launched, with Roddy Lumsden as editor, publishing 18 of the best young poets in the UK over a period of three years. Amongst these were Ailbhe Darcy, Emily Berry, Jay Bernard, Kate Potts, John McCullough, Miriam Gamble, Sarah Howe, Vidyan Ravinthiran.

The current Director of the press is Les Robinson, who started the press in 1999 before retiring in 2011 handing the keys over to Gareth Lewis. Sadly Gareth died in 2016 and the press returned to Les.

In 2018 tall-lighthouse re-issued Brendan Cleary’s Selected Poems goin’ down slow and in ’19 published a sequence of poems by Brendan Cleary relating to the photographer Eadweard Muybridge Do Horses Fly? and an exciting debut collection Where, the Mile End from Julie Morrissy, an Irish poet who was a recipient of the Next Generation Artist Award from the Arts Council of Ireland.

In 2020 we published Live Ones – Sadie McCarney a debut collection from a brilliant young Canadian writer, and a new collection all it would take from marc swan and returned to the pamphlet form with Frank & Stella – Mark Wynne.

In ’21 we published the debut collection from Sonya Smithevery robin i never quite saw and the pamphlets Wasted RainbowCaleb Parkin and the unique pamphlet Being Called NormalSarah Shapiro & the debut pamphlet Constructions [Konstrukce] – Joshua Calladine-Jones.