Scottish poet and kenspeckle performer of his work, Stuart A Paterson has had a long and established career, publishing his first poetry collection Mulaney of Larne and other Poems in 1991. He has since released several other poetry collections, as well as received a prestigious Eric Gregory Award. Stuart hails from Robert Burns’ Ayrshire hometown, Read More
Daniel Sluman’s poems hold suffering. They cover uselessness, frailty and anger both resolved and unresolved. the terrible doesn’t pander or pussyfoot, it reverberates with the poet’s confessions and rings vividly. This, Sluman’s second collection, follows his 2012 debut Absence has a weight of its own which was released to critical acclaim. The poet has held Read More
It is a striking image – that of Jan Van Brock’s engraving “Woman in hunting dress” – which adorns the cover of Belfast-born poet Adam Crothers’ debut collection. Behind the elegant, shotgun-carrying woman, a pair of deer sits placidly on a moonlit night. Only on looking closer do you notice the folds etched into the Read More
Perhaps we all long for a more carefree period in our lives. Nostalgia for childhood is almost universal; however, this outwardly innocent melancholy is ultimately dangerous as by its very nature nostalgia romanticises and we forget the past’s real darkness. In Brother, award-winning American poets Matthew and Michael Dickman’s latest collaborative collection, the sibling poets Read More
Proudly they stroll in absorbed dignity towards bothlabatsatsi where the sky lightens as if the handsome baratani are drawing up the new day. Peter Jarvis’ first poetry collection, Nights of a Shining Moon opens at dawn in “Aubade”, with a hopeful image of two lovers walking into the sunrise, the persona watching them and listening Read More
Tabard Inn to Canterbury Cathedral, poet pilgrims competing for free picks, Chaucer Tales, track by track, here’s the remix [.] What does the word re-mix mean to you? Personally, I always associated re-mixes with music, taking an old song, lay it over a new beat, reharmonize the melody and BAM! Simple. But did you know Read More
Its sound could wither the feathers of eagles make fire from ice play tricks with existence changing form at a whim. The raven: an omen of bad luck to the superstitious, a notable character in myths and fairytales, and self-evidently the predominant figure in Glasgow-based poet Nalini Paul’s The Raven’s Song. While poems from this Read More
“But why linger? Why stay in this world of oak and tree and rock?” A quote from Hesiod’s Theonogy opens Tess Taylor’s collection Work & Days. The poems that follow – described by Taylor herself as “latter day Georgics” – serve as poetic responses to a series of questions: What kind of world do we Read More
And the wild ways we think we walk Just bring us here again. In her latest poetry collection, The Bonniest Companie, Kathleen Jamie considers not only the Scotland of today, but the Scotland of the past, of her childhood and its timeless myth-shrouded wilderness. The poet presents the natural and political landscapes of her native Read More
“People imagine poets are perpetually inspired. This is not true.” This perfectly captures the foundational ideas on which Christodoulos Makris’ second collection, The Architecture of Chance, is built. Described by Rick O’Shea as “one of Ireland’s leading contemporary explorers of experimental poetics”, Makris’ collection examines the nature of chance encounters in contemporary society, and how Read More