Mulfran Miniatures, an illustrated pamphlet series

About Mulfran Miniatures

A series of small-format pamphlets (following on from the Vennel Press Brief Pleasures series) Mulfran Miniatures will include taster selections by Mulfran poets, by poets who have not yet published a full collection, and by already well-known poets, alongside artists whose images inspired or respond to the poems. Each pamphlet is in A6 format, 16 pages, price £4.

Mulfran Miniatures reviewed on Ellipsis Poetry

A review by Kate Noakes of Mulfran Miniatures includes considerations of each of the first four pamplets in the series, as well as commenting on the series as a whole: "Mulfran Press, from Cardiff, in addition to publishing some fine individual volumes of verse (see the forthcoming review of Lesley Saunders’ No Doves in the first print edition of Ellipsis), has produced a series of miniatures. These are small groups of poems or sequences and each pocket-sized book is beautifully illustrated by different artists."
Kate Noakes, Small Is Beautiful, Ellipsis Poetry

Mulfran Miniatures — 1
The Sychbant by Roy Morgans
with illustrations by Marion KV Kenning
ISBN 987-1-907327-04-9

Roy Morgans is a caver and keen explorer of the limestone hills in South Wales. In The Sychbant, he shares with us one of these explorations — through the course of a day, along the course of the Sychbant — in a series of detailed meditations on the landscape and on movement through the risks of a pathless journey to a certain destination.

Marion Kenning (photographer, digital artist and illustrator) particularly enjoys collaborating with performers, musicians and authors. Her sensitivity towards people's creative works is clearly demonstrated in her illustrations for The Sychbant.

Mulfran Miniatures — 2
Work & Food by Peter Daniels
with illustrations by Moira Coupe
ISBN 987-1-907327-05-6

Peter Daniels, winner of the first prize in the TLS 2010 poetry competition and the 2008 Arvon Competition, is now working on new poems and on translations. Work & Food is a mini-retrospective focused on those two essentials: Peter lives and eats in Stoke Newington, and works as a freelance editor.

Moira Coupe also lives and works in Stoke Newington. She took a postgraduate degree in printmaking in 1990, and has exhibited widely, including in Japan. In 1991 Moira was diagnosed with MS, and to accomodate the fluctuating nature of MS she now works with a greater variety of materials. The images in this book are ink drawings.

Mulfran Press home page

Mulfran Miniatures — 3
The Hard Man by Malcolm Lewis
with two drawings by Ceri Richards
ISBN 987-1-907327-06-3

Malcolm Lewis from Caerffili is a freelance editor, writer and arts journalist with a music column in Planet: The Welsh Internationalist and is film critic for New Internationalist. Though now living in London, he is often to be found in South Wales. Ceri Richards (1903-71) is recognised as 'the most internationally reknowned Welsh painter' of the post-war period. His superb draughtsman is evident in these drawings of his father, which perfectly complement this tough, moving sequence of poems.

Mulfran Miniatures — 4
My Shinji Noon by Maureen Jivani
with illustrations by Jill Schoenmann
ISBN 987-1-907327-07-0

Maureen Jivani’s first collection, Insensible Heart, from which this sequence is drawn, was publishedby Mulfran Press in 2009. Her poems have appeared in the UK, New Zealand and Australia online and in magazines including Frogmore Papers, The Glasgow Review, Magma, nthposition, Orbis, The Rialto, Seam, Smiths Knoll, and The Wolf.

Jill Schoenmann, born in Penarth South Wales where she has lived for most of her life, studied fashion design at Cardiff College of Art. Jill had her own fashion business for many years, her love of drawing and painting always influencing that work. Now, her earlier design background finds a way into her paintings and illustrations. Her collages of drawing and textiles respond to Jivani's eastern-flavoured tale.

Mulfran Miniatures — 5
Some Languages Are Hard To Dream In by Lesley Saunders
with images by Christopher Hedley-Dent
ISBN 987-1-907327-09-4

Lesley Saunders’ collection, No Doves, from which this sequence is drawn, was published spring 2010. She is a much-published poet who was awarded joint first prize in the Manchester poetry Prize 2008, and collaborated with the artist Geoff Carr on Her Leafy Eye from Two Rivers Press (2009). More about her publications can be found on Lesley's own website.

Christopher Hedley-Dent is a painter and print-maker (and poet) who has had major exhibitions and is collected in England, Wales, France and America. He responded to Lesley's poem with visual improvisation inspired by some of the key images and the mood of the piece, adopting a kind of surrealist collage approach in their composition. Christoper's web site has more information about his working practices and offers artist's prints of these vinyl cut images.