American poet Terrance Hayes’ latest poetry collection, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, is a series of sonnets that, as the back of the paperback declares, ‘traces the fault lines of race, gender and political oppression with a singular passion and wit.’ Indeed, this offering of 70 devastating sonnets both disarms and charms the reader. Read More
Hannah Sullivan’s first book of poems breathes, from the tumultous living of the opening poem through a steadier still-vibrant growth in the second, to the painful inspirations of the third. Having led an academic career on both sides of the Atlantic, she’s translated her keen observations of the minutia of existence into something moving and Read More
Ailbhe Darcy’s second collection is a literary force of nature fearlessly exploring themes of love and grief. Much like her debut collection, Imaginary Menagerie, which begins in Dublin and then stretches further afield, Darcy offers a dark telling of the world seen through her eyes. Similarly, in Insistence, an unsettling feeling of hopelessness and anxiety Read More
Nick Laird’s fourth book of poetry, Feel Free, is a cleverly arranged three-part collection exploring the two words of the title: what it is like to feel and the nature of being free, if indeed freedom exists at all. The poems cover a huge range, from metaphysical notions of justice and the meaning of existence, Read More
‘You Are Now Entering Europa’, the opening poem in this, Sean O’Brien’s ninth collection, derives its title from a Lars von Trier film. In the film prologue, the voice of Max von Sydow primes the listener, ‘On the count of 1 to 10, you will be in Europa’, and as he descends the numbers, we Read More
Since the release of his poetry collection in 2014, Zaffar Kunial has been known for his exploration and experiment with language. His Anglo-Indian heritage means he can draw inspiration from both English and Urdu. Us has been praised, among many things, for a melding of languages and for Kunial’s flair for storytelling. Poetry, and indeed Read More
Fiona Moore’s The Distal Point is a debut collection that builds on earlier successes: poems from her pamphlets The Only Reason for Time (2013), a Guardian’s Poetry Book of the Year, and Night Letter (2015), shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award, appear alongside new work full of raw emotion and acute observation. ‘The Shirt’, an Read More
Every day the new and new kind lose their shyness. They approach us, look us in the eye, lead us to the sea. Without fear together we stop to breathe. [‘Tidal Events’] The boundaries between ‘them’ and ‘us’ are explored with utmost attention throughout Mária Ferenčuhová’s new Shearsman collection whether these be in relation to Read More
If light fails, follow darkness in my eyes she says, unfolds the map engraved on her, marks him with a cross and draws him in. (“The Woodman’s Tale”) Just as the recently-deceased Nicolas Roeg’s film Insignificance plays lightly with several kinds of significance, only the foolhardy would draw easy assumptions from Incidentals’ title. The name Read More
Evelyn Schlag’s All Under One Roof captivates the reader using conversational prose, and a pattern of discovery in the innocent encounter of the places and the experiences that the speaker of the poem grows through. Translated by Kareen Leeder with a fine touch, the collection draws from her two German-language collections – Language of a Read More