Why? And other questions
This pamphlet was a joint winner of the 2019 Live Canon Poetry Pamphlet Competition.
Review in Under the Radar by Julia Webb
OPOI review by Peter Raynard on the Sphinx blog.
Enjoying catching up on some reading. WHY? And Other Questions by @RobinHoughton from @LiveCanon is a heady mix of intriguing, meaty & poignant poems. Consume in one sitting or savour over several. #poetry #amreading pic.twitter.com/iFVvONBITe
— Hilaire (@Xilaire) December 27, 2019
Why? And other questions (Live Canon, November 2019)
ISBN 978-1-909703-77-3
£7 from the Live Canon shop
All the Relevant Gods
All the Relevant Gods was a joint winner of the Cinnamon Press Pamphlet Competition 2018.
“…an impressive range of reference… it deploys the specific to hint evocatively at larger concerns” – Ian Gregson
“Confidently playful as well as seriously clever, these are poems that lodge in the memory and under the skin.” – Catherine Smith
“Robin Houghton’s All the Relevant Gods bears the confident hallmarks of an accomplished poet ready for a first full collection. […] There is a nicely insinuated examination of mutability throughout this book, as well as a wry critique of globalisation and the contemporary mores….[…] what lends her critique moral strength is the fact that Houghton implicates herself in the million sins of expediency that we all commit while deploring their aggregate results. Her own experience of the corporate world yields an authenticity to poems like ‘Handmade in Guangzhou’ ‘1 Poultry’ and ‘She discovered the internet’.” – Martin Malone in The Interpreter’s House
“…the strength of good writing […] when a phrase or stanza unpeels itself weeks later, somewhere deep in your skull without you even remembering it was there in the first place” – Abegail Morley at The Poetry Shed
Review by Becky Varley-Winter at Sabotage Reviews (“…persistently compelling” )
Review by Rachel Playforth at Sphinx
Review by Pam Thompson at London Grip (“Robin Houghton is a subtle poet: we recognise the places and circumstances of her poems yet, at the same time, she draws our attention consistently to what might be in ‘the unreachable corner of the room.'”)
Review by Emma Lee on her blog (“It’s refreshing to read a pamphlet willing to experiment with voice and style instead of tightly winding poems to a theme or restricting form to give poems a uniform feel.”)
…and an interesting analysis of my poem ‘1 Poultry’ on The Rialto blog, by associate editor Rishi Dastidar.
All the Relevant Gods (Cinnamon Press, February 2018)
ISBN 978-1-910836-95-8
£5 postage free, signed copy – contact Robin to buy.
The Great Vowel Shift
Debut pamphlet published by Telltale Press in 2014.
“a perfect little book full of powerful, subtle poems” – Hugh Dunkerley
“… equally at home in poignancy and exuberance”– John McCullough
“… an admirable balance of tenderness and terseness” – Hamish Canham Award judges on ‘Ellipsis’
“… a sense of the oceanic is achieved with the minimum of words and props” – Pascale Petit on ‘Midnight Pickup’
Reviewed by Steve McQueen in The Interpreter’s House 62
Reviewed by Jan Fortune in Envoi 172
Review by Martin Noutch at London Grip
Review by Afric McGlinchey at Sabotage Reviews
Review by Rebecca Gethin on her blog
Review at Sphinx by Josephine Corcoran
Reviewed by Clare Best in The Frogmore Papers 84 (“… a beautifully balanced short pamphlet collection… each (poem) absolutely earns its place”)
The Great Vowel Shift, (Telltale Press 2014)
ISBN 978-09928555-0-5
£4, UK postage free – signed copy – contact Robin to buy.
NB For pamphlet orders outside the UK there may be a shipping cost.