Nina Mingya Powles’ invigorating first full poetry collection is not called just Magnolia. The Chinese characters 木蘭 that complete the title – transliterated as ‘mulan’ – are an important clue as to the nature of her work, suffused as it is with layers of meaning across different languages. Born in 1993, in New Zealand, of Read More
Citadel is Martha Sprackland’s first full collection, following two previous pamphlets (Glass as Broken Glass in 2017 and Milk Tooth in 2018) and a raft of poetry editing credentials. The slim volume carries fifty poems and has a density to the reading. This stems from the complex premise packed into the work: a historical reimagining Read More
In this latest collection of poems, David Morley, prize-winning poet and Professor of Creative Writing at Warwick University, puts his versatile lyrical toolkit on display. Sustaining his interest in the Romany gypsy community, its mythology and folklore—subjects of his previous Poetry Book Society Recommendation and Choice books, The Invisible Kings and The Gypsy and the Read More
‘I cannot live, just fucking let me die.’ Whether intentionally or not, James Womack’s translation, if we can call it that, of Maximian’s Elegies comes at a rather appropriate time. A global pandemic ravaging the world with seemingly no end in sight, ecological and societal collapse perhaps just a few decades around the corner, we Read More
The Air Year is Caroline Bird’s sixth collection with Carcanet. Her most recent and highly successful, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize and the Ted Hughes Award. Bird, who published her first collection at the age of 15, displays an astonishing talent and a unique ‘voice’, and is Read More
One may be surprised to discover that Shine, Darling is Ella Frears’ debut poetry collection. Frears presents an unapologetic front through her straightforward style, favouring lyric poetry as her medium. There is a raw intimacy to perform these experiences, whether it be a near-abduction, a suicide when she was in college, or having sex on Read More
Sitting outside in a motorway cafe on a cool August evening after the mizzling rain, Kirsty Gunn and I talked intensely (as we do) about a novel we had difficulties with. Many of our exchanges were underpinned by the question: how does form and genre enable writing to tackle its subject matter successfully? Will Harris’ Read More
Amongst other dedications in Postcolonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz singles out bodies—’towards our many bodies of flesh, language, land and water.’ Bodies are critical because they are primary symbols of the self and constants in our equations with others; whether it is love or war – these bodies form tribute and legacies, weapons and Read More
The way we are forced to work around the pandemic unfortunately applies to the launching of poetry publications also; as Rachel Long’s My Darling from the Lions was published at the start of August, chances for public appearances, speaking and promoting her work are all but whipped away. The publication must speak for itself. Long Read More
‘Antlers of Water’—the phrase is MacCaig’s—and for several reasons it’s an apt title for this new anthology of ‘Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland’. That craggy map. A land that is as much water, as land. Those antlers, perfectly seen by the poet, delve deeply into what it is to live in Scotland. Read More