Oystercatcher Press has published over 50 pamphlets of contemporary poetry in its short existence. It won the inaugural Michael Marks Award 'for outstanding UK publisher of poetry in pamphlet form'. Chair of judges Ian McMillan praised the press for 'taking risks with older and newer writers from outside the perceived centre of British poetry'. This anthology now provides the first opportunity to sample all the poets represented by Oystercatcher Press in one book. It confirms the judgement, made by Ian Brinton in World Literature Today, that Oystercatcher Press offers 'some of the most exciting and vivid poetry available in England today'.

Nistanimera is a site of potent mergers: day and night, Greece and Italy, head and heart, liver and lights, dream and reality, within and without. Ideally it should be imagined as a cantata sung by a lost transvestite Roman Catholic/Marxist nun banged up in a detention centre off the A14. The film rights are currently under negotiation. Peter Hughes is a painter, musician, poet and teacher who lives in East Anglia.