Salmon Poetry, taking its name from the Salmon of Knowledge in Celtic mythology, was established in 1981 as an alternative voice in Irish literature. The Salmon, a journal of poetry and prose was a flagship for writers in the west of Ireland, and Salmon's first books, Gonella by Eva Bourke and Goddess on the Mervue Bus by Rita Ann Higgins broke new ground for women poets. Since then over 200 volumes of poetry have been produced, and Salmon has become one of the most important publishers in the Irish literary world. By specialising in the promotion of new poets, particularly women poets, Salmon has enriched Irish literary publishing. 

In recent years Salmon has developed a cross-cultural, international literary dialogue... "broadening the parameter of Irish literature by opening up to other cultures and by urging new perspectives on established traditions. That enviable balance of focus and ranginess is a rare and instructive achievement" ('Opening up to Other Cultures', Poetry Ireland Review 54, Kathleen McCracken.

Salmon Poetry has continually taken risks. The challenge has always been in walking the tightrope between innovation and convention. The conventional approach is what makes art comfortable for people, accepted and necessary, but creative expression is not always so and not always immediately popular.

The judgment of what is Good and Bad in art is fraught, and it is, unfortunately, easier for many people to focus on what has already been accepted into the established stable. New work is work which is vulnerable; the greatest of artists can look back at their early work and see how far they have progressed. In order to progress there has to be a starting point. And if we are broad minded and willing to nurture the individual voice inherent in the work, the artist will emerge. Salmon has always given focus to this concept and seen its writers flourish.

---

---

The Salmon current and back list includes initial works by now-established Irish poets Rita Ann Higgins, Theo Dorgan, Moya Cannon, Mary O'Donnell, Eamonn Wall, Mary O'Malley, Eva Bourke, Janice Fitzpatrick-Simmons, and Gerard Donovan. We have published a range of international poets including Adrienne Rich, Marvin Bell, Richard Tillinghast, Carol Ann Duffy, R.T. Smith, Linda McCarriston, Ron Houchin, and Ben Howard.

Salmon places a strong emphasis on the design of its books and has been consistently praised for the quality of its productions. Our books are represented in the USA by Dufour Editions, and in the United Kingdom by Central Books, London. They are distributed in Ireland by CMD Booksource. 

---

---

Jessie Lendennie is the founder and Managing Editor of Salmon Poetry.  A poet herself, her prose poem Daughter was published in 1988, and reissued with new poems in 2001. In 1990, The Salmon Guide to Poetry Publishing appeared and in 1992 by The Salmon Guide to Creative Writing in Ireland. More recently, she edited Salmon: A Journey in Poetry, 1981-1997 (Salmon, 1997) and Poetry: Reading it, Writing it, Publishing it (Salmon, 2009).



Siobhán Hutson is Salmon's Production Manager.  She designs the Salmon books and promotional material as well as maintaining the Salmon website.  She has a First Class Honours degree in Film, Television and Radio Studies from Staffordshire University, UK.





Jean Kavanagh is Salmon's Administrative Assistant, dealing with review outlets, libraries, book orders, etc. She previously worked for Waterstone's, Dawson Street, Dublin as Children's Book Buyer.







MORE PRAISE FOR SALMON POETRY

Salmon Poetry is one of the most innovative, perceptive and important publishing houses in the U.K. or Ireland.  It has fostered and supported the work of new writers and has established them in the public consciousness.

Salmon's unique profile grows from the diversity of the work it publishes... most notably, Salmon is distinguished by the number of women on its list.


... Salmon has been an essential seed-bed, not alone for Irish poetry, but also for a much wider spread of artistic activity. No one else in Ireland in the last few years has been as prepared as Salmon to publish previously unknown poets. Salmon has not merely accommodated new voices, but has actively sought them out. And the general cultural significance of this work has been made immeasurably more important by Salmon's innovation in discovering and publishing the work of so many women. Poetry has been arguably the most import mode of expression for a new generation of Irish women writers, and Salmon has been the most important channel of that expression. In this light, though it has itself been a small and quiet enterprise, Salmon's work in recent years has been of large and loud importance.


Salmon Poetry—established in 1981— has, as no other Irish publisher, crossed the borders of nation, gender, age and class.  In the Salmon catalogue one will find:
• new writers in need of that first burst of support to help them on to flourishing careers—Ireland's young and inventive women and men, with fresh ideas and abundant energy;
• older artists who had been unfairly neglected and deserved a chance to show their talents;
• poets from the North of Ireland and the Republic with new and innovative ideas about Irish identity;
• thinkers from abroad who, as permanent residents or passionate visitors, have brought new outlooks to Irish ways of life;
• emigrants who, from their homes abroad, continue to demonstrate the gifts of language,place,and imagination that they once found here;
• writers from every segment of Irish society, from working class Galway to the halls of Dublin's universities; from the Donegal shores to the streets of Cork; from Limerick to Maynooth,from Belfast to the farthest shores to which Irish men and women have travelled.

Salmon is a true example of that 'new golden age' for Irish culture that will be, in President Mary Robinson's words,'at the heart of the Irish identity'.