How came separation to chisel, to cherish, to chafe? (‘Some Questions’) There’s always that danger in knowing a writer’s backstory, being aware of historical contexts, or as here, when we live through extreme times and cannot help but use that lens as we read. Over-reading and filtering poems through the reader’s experiences are rightly Read More
Patrick Kehoe used to live in Spain, but this poetry collection has more to offer than beautiful descriptions of its cities. In three sections, he explores his experiences of the past and the meaning of memory. Some of the poems praise the golden Spanish cities and lament the absence of shade; others, such as ‘The Read More
Sigmund Freud coined the phrase ‘afterwardness’ to describe the belated understanding that occurs with the passage of time. It is the ripening of past events by age and experience – a form of alchemy. The concept has inspired the title of a new book of poetry by Iranian born, British poet Mimi Khalvati. Her collection Read More
In The Lateness of the World is the fourth collection from Carolyn Forché, coiner of the phrase ‘poetry of witness’. Seventeen years on from her last collection, Blue Hour, Forché continues to bear witness with her poems, which here serve as war correspondence, warnings and eulogies, to both individuals and the world around us. Intertextuality Read More
Gerry Cambridge, nature photographer, essayist, editor and award-winning poet, journeys the shifting landscapes of life from Arbroath to Glasgow, youth to middle-age, natural and domestic, in this, his eighth poetry collection. His meditations on regret, loss and acceptance (among others), are captured with his characteristic photographic precision, and rendered sharply by the elegance of his Read More
I first encountered the pejorative term ‘Mary Sue’ in a critical review of Samantha Shannon’s Bone Season and can still recall my bemusement; Shannon had secured an impressive seven-book deal with Bloomsbury yet stood accused of creating merely an idealised projection of herself. It is this gendered injustice which Sophie Collins now examines in her Read More
Reading Charlotte Van den Broeck’s recent Bloodaxe collection makes it clear to the reader exactly why she is acclaimed as one of Europe’s most innovative and original new voices in poetry. Her first English-translated poetry collection, Chameleon, was published in 2015, followed by her second poetry collection with the untranslatable title; Nachtroer in 2017. Chameleon Read More
In Catch and Release, place and person meld into one and the same, giving voice to both so that they may reveal how they give life to one-another. Canadian-born Beverly Bie Brahic has already published a relatively substantial number of titles, such as The Hotel Eden and Hunting the Boar, and White Sheets, which won Read More
This collection, Maitreyabandhu’s third with Bloodaxe, has an unusual format. It is illustrated with 25 paintings by the post-Impressionist painter, Paul Cezanne, and together the poems in the collection form a meditation on aspects of the artist and his work. Maitreyabandhu, who studied fine art at Goldsmiths, trained as a Buddhist monk and now lives Read More
The petals gleam the utter blue of the welder’s flame[.] ‘The Dockyard’ Oh, the succinct and perfect use of ‘utter’ here to convey the blueness of that flame! What better word to use? Lines such as this continue to resonate long after reading John Glenday’s fourth collection of poetry, The Golden Mean. ‘The Dockyard’ works Read More