MARK RUSSELL
winner of the 2022 erbacce-prize for poetry
Welcome to the webpage of Mark Russell the outright winner of the erbacce-prize for poetry 2022 from among more than fifteen thousand submissions world-wide! Our largest number of submissions ever and it is important to know that all the submissions were/are selected BLIND... all the selection-panellists have is a number and the five pages of poems sent as a submission, no other details at all; hence the final selection is simply the best there is. Mark's work was selected by the six panellists for its originality both in terms of content and layout. I can safely assert without fear of contradiction that this collection is definitely DIFFERENT.
So who is Mark? Well he's actually widely published already both in the UK and USA; previous full collections are Shopping for Punks (Hesterglock, 2017), and Spearmint & Rescue (Pindrop, 2016). He has published five pamphlets/chapbooks: the book of gatherings (Red Ceilings, 2020); the book of moose (Kattywompus, USA, 2016); the book of seals (Red Ceilings, 2016); Saturday Morning Pictures (Red Ceilings, 2015), and Pursued by Well-being (tall-lighthouse, 2013).
Mark studied in Liverpool where he gained a first class degree in Drama & English, and then won a British Academy award to take a Masters in Theatre Studies at Leeds. Before moving to Scotland, he worked as a lecturer in Theatre Arts at Addis Ababa University, and as a journalist in Cornwall.
During his career as a teacher of Drama, Mark has written educational books and materials for theatre productions, and on several subjects including Contemporary Scottish Theatre, Brecht, Artaud, Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, and Augusto Boal.
His plays have been performed at the Glasgow West End Festival, in Edinburgh, as a rehearsed reading at the Citizens’ Theatre by the Playwrights' Studio, Scotland, and at the Byre Theatre, St Andrews, for the WYSIWYG International Children's Theatre Festival.
In 2010, Mark was awarded a distinction for his MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. The same year, he and poet Vicki Husband co-founded (and continue to co-host) the Glasgow Poetry Book Group. He is a member of the Glasgow-based poetry collective St Mungo’s Mirrorball, and benefitted from their mentorship scheme in 2012-13 under the late, great Alexander Hutchison. Mark won the 2020 Magma Poetry Judge’s Prize, and his poems have appeared in many magazines, including Shearsman, Stand, Tears in the Fence, The Manchester Review, The Rialto, Blackbox Manifold, and Poetry Wales.
The book we at erbacce have produced for Mark is Men Who Repeat Themselves and if you click on the cover below you can email the poet direct; maybe ask him a question or perhaps even request a signed copy of the book. Mark is a very amenable chap and eminently approachable. The book is perfect-bound and 144 pages.
Above the cover is a PayPal 'Buy Now' button. We (I) STRONGLY recommend this book, as the editor at erbacce-press I have read quite literally thousands of poetry submissions each year and edit about five books a year but I have NEVER come across one quite like this. In many ways it is 100% unique.
Mark is on twitter: @mark59russell ...and click HERE for a link to his personal website.
