You can tell much about a city by its attitudes to the arts. Or perhaps it’s the art that alerts us to the victories and vicissitudes of a city. Even a brief list of Dundee’s leet of literati would include a high number of leading poets, such as W. N. Herbert (one of the editors Read More
I feel bad giving a movie a negative review, especially when it contains an amazing cast. When I heard that Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, Matt Damon, George Clooney (also director, producer and co-writer) Jean Durjardin and John Goodman had all come together to star in The Monuments Men, I was excited to say the least. The strength Read More
An edited transcript… JS: Bill Herbert, thank you for agreeing to this interview for Dundee University Review of the Arts and congratulations on being appointed Dundee’s Makar. So, it’s obvious what my opening query’s going to be – what does this mean, that you’re going to be Dundee’s Makar? What are you going to have Read More
Supposedly, reference humour is the laziest kind of humour there is. However, that is not always the case if one combines references and humour, as Jenner does in Two for Joy. Use of the former are perhaps the most characteristic trait of his poetry. Indeed, one might easily accuse him of overdoing it. “Titov Dying”, Read More
Maps, DNA and Spam is the latest exhibition by Scotland and London based artists Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead. Both are graduates from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and have been working together since 1993. The work examines how communication networks and the internet are changing the way we see and relate Read More
Ten Days in Jamaica, the title of Ifeona Fulani’s new collection of short stories, hints at a brief sojourn in the Caribbean,suggesting a series of postcard snapshots of various island locales. Fulani’s collection of views and vistas travels much further than the average vacation visit or perfunctory tour guide; instead she offers journeys through and Read More
“How can it possibly work – a book describing a film, more or less shot by shot?” asks Tess Hadley, author of The London Train (2011), in response to Geoff Dyer’s Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room. And indeed it shouldn’t. A thorough account of Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker, Read More
Although Any Other Branch is Ivy Page’s debut collection, her work is already much anthologized and is well-published in numerous respected journals. Additionally, she is the founder and editor of Organs of Vision and Speech Magazine. Perhaps tellingly, her dedication to “my best beloved, Stephen & for my girls …” opens up a highly moving Read More
This anthology, Where Rockets Burn Through, houses some familiar names along with a small host of rising names, all of whom make good strong poems. It has to be said, though, that on the whole the poems are parasitic on sci-fi, rather than symbionts of that genre. Strangely, the collection can even offer Malene Engelund’s Read More
Visual artist and poet Helen Ivory’s fourth collection makes a statement which appears to ink its colours strongly on her arrestingly beautiful cover. Her series of poems “tries to understand how a girl could grow up to be the woman living in Bluebeard’s house.” Arranged chronologically, the significantly longer section, Part One,examines that life prior Read More