Already a much published and praised poet, Footnotes to Water is Zoë Skoulding’s most recent work. This collection has rivers at its heart: the Adda in Bangor, Wales, where she works as a critic and translator, and the Bièvre in Paris. The mystery behind these hidden rivers bursts forth as language and as a symbol Read More
I carry the war in my womb. At night it kicks and sings stories of the first night that war came calling. In the first lines of Songs My Enemy Taught Me, Joelle Taylor sets the reader on a journey that begins with her own early experience of abuse, and travels across the globe into Read More
I can only give you back what you imagine. (‘The Fluffer Talks of Eternity’) It’s true, every poem in Useless Landscape gives the reader only what they can imagine. However, in reality Powell gives his readers anything and everything they can imagine. Across its 100 pages, this collection surprises the reader at every turn of Read More
There is a cyclone fence between ourselves and the slaughter behind it we hover in a calm protected world like netted fish, exactly like netted fish. It is either the beginning or the end of the world, and the choice is ourselves or nothing. (‘Ourselves or Nothing’) Journalist, academic, memoir-writer, editor, poet and human rights’ Read More
Rachel Mann’s A Kingdom of Love is a collection of incantatory free verse that leaves a pattern of allusions for readers with religious inclinations to discover. The sensual and intellectual writing within demonstrates what language can do when tackling weighty issues such as the presence of God, the reality of death, suffering and love. In Read More
I was firstly struck by the cover of this rich and densely packed collection by Trinidadian writer, Nicholas Laughlin. At first glance, the cover, simple black and white, crammed with text, looks similar to an old topographical map – lines marking out regions and boundaries. A closer look at the text and an explanation at Read More
By its nature, as the waters of the Ocean, the extent of heaven’s bliss cannot be defined. But the sphere of human happiness is like a dew-drop clinging to a blade of grass. Vidagama Maitreya, Budugunalamkaraya (‘Beauteous Virtues of the Buddha’, 15th century). Epigraph taken from The True Paradise, Gamini Salgado. Reading and re-reading The Read More
In his marvellous essay on writing about 9/11, ‘Can poetry console a grieving public?’, Mark Doty sets out the difficulties of writing about public tragedy. Can one bear witness to ‘the inchoate stuff of experience’ ─ intensely felt private pain or even anger ─ and yet also keep faith with ‘language’s project of discovering and Read More
‘All I’ve ever done with my life is follow the average course’ (The Starling) How bold of Paul Farley to open his recent poetry collection, The Mizzy, with such a provocative admission to have followed the ordinary or ‘average course’? Yet, Farley is anything but average or conventional, and throughout this latest collection, the profound Read More