Poetics in Geraldine Clarkson’s work insist on our attention long before we have even embarked on our journey of understanding. Her latest chapbook is no exception. The collection opens with a reference to the “lovely” and “elegant” River Leam in Clarkson’s home in the Midlands, from where she wanders in time and place, but the Read More
Mary Leader, an American lawyer-turned-poet, has found a home with the British-based Publisher Shearsman Books. She Lives There Still is her second title to be published with them, and they are due to re-issue her two earlier works that are currently out-of-print. A fifth collection has already been completed. Perhaps this match should hold no Read More
There’s an unexplained comfort in reading Luck is the Hook despite many of the poems dealing with pain and, often, discomfort. Each one contains a space devoid of explanation, a sacred place of intimacy for both the poet and the reader. Awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014, Luck is the Hook is Read More
No voices just a roar and the birdsong of gunfire in winter sunlight slouched down the well of leather seats yielding diminishing her height a dead giveaway: this the mother of all riots speak only Farsi There are autobiographical narratives, then there are those grounded in exceptional circumstances and Read More
The poet Jim Stewart (1952-2016) earned that rarest of writer’s accolades: of being well-loved by those who not only knew his work but knew him. He had a well-deserved reputation as a gifted and inspiring teacher who, in typical Dundonian fashion, seemed to hide his calling under a genuine sense of duty, so that his Read More
There are times when life throws us into trying situations that isolate us from the understanding of others. In 2014 Gordon Meade was diagnosed with cancer. In his 9th poetry collection he takes the reader on a full tour of the battlefield – from the diagnosis to the battle itself and finally, its positive verdict. Read More
cos cheum nach gabh tilleadh For some, Robin Robertson’s book-length narrative poem is “unclassifiable”. Shortlisted for awards invariably dominated by prose, it is epic in both scale and ambition. Resisting the strict fit of epic form, its protagonist (the aptly-named Walker) is overly human for deification; its netherworld trips, earthly hells. Remembered paradises are also Read More
“If we had a vision and a feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow […] and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.” (George Eliot, Middlemarch.) The US Laureate, Tracy K. Smith, in her fourth collection of poetry, explores that “other Read More
The intriguing title of Vahni Capildeo’s exquisite collection, Venus as a Bear, promises a kind of transformational prose, a mish-mash of animal and myth, of the ordinary and the extraordinary – and it surely delivers. A winner of the 2016 Forward Poetry Prize, Capildeo is undoubtedly a worthy contender for this year’s prize. Capildeo’s verse Read More
Kaveh Akbar’s poetry is captivating not only for its beautiful turn of phrases but also for its more profound musings in evocative lines that linger: “eternity looms/ in the corner like a home invader saying don’t mind me I’m just here to watch you nap”. Yet Calling a Wolf a Wolf isn’t simply a sum Read More