Newsletter November 2026

Tom Leonard, writing in 1986: ‘Reznikoff is one of the very great writers of this century. Why more people don’t share this opinion, I’m not sure. Maybe they haven’t read him.’ He argues that while most writers can do one ‘at the expense of the other’, Reznikoff can convey both ‘a deep sense of the existential, of the solitariness of the here-and-now’ and ‘a deep sense of history, and his place and responsibility as a human being in history’.

One reason people may not have read Reznikoff is that, while his work has been translated into at least seven other languages, not a single book by him is currently available in the UK. This is about to change. Above, boxes of the CBe edition of Testimony parked outside number 146; to be published early next year. More information here. The book is large format, 608 pages; it brings to the UK the complete, single-volume edition of Testimony first published in the US by Black Sparrow/David Godine in 2015. And Redstone Press will publish The Sound of the Street, selected poems by Reznikoff presented alongside photographs of early 20th-century New York by Berenice Abbott, Jacob Riis and others.

Both CBe and Redstone Press are one-person operations. As was, for most of his life, Reznikoff: he not only self-published but designed and printed, on his own second-hand press, small editions of his work. That both Testimony and a selection of his poems will be published in the UK for the first time by very small presses seems fitting, and it is an enormous privilege to be able to do this.

On 10 November at the Alpine Club (London EC2A 3QF) Penelope Curtis will read from The Fall and talk about the part in book played by the Rev. Charles Hudson, who in 1865 left the low-lying village of Skillington in Lincolnshire to climb the Matterhorn. Free entry, reserve tickets here.

Natalia Zagórska-Thomas's photograph Blush: a self-portrait in kid gloves is being shown at this year's Paris Photo exhibition by England and Co, opening on 11 November. This photo became the front cover of Blush, published by CB editions in 2018, and there will be a cross-Channel outing to celebrate.

CBe will have a table at the book fair organised by Peirene Press at the Central Library in Bath on Saturday, 21 November, from 10.30 a.m. – if you happen to be thereabouts, do come.