This intriguing collection by A B Jackson journeys through the fantastical and the mundane with a somewhat counter-intuitive outlook upon both. Jackson approaches his topics whole-heartedly, allowing his reader to wrestle with his ideas. In some (most notably in “Inexpressible Island” and “The Find”) there might be an apparently graphic and crude feel to his Read More
The Girl in the Dog-Tooth Coat is the debut collection of emerging talent Zelda Chappel. This compilation of fifty-nine short free-verse poems confronts themes of loss and longing, grief and regret, anxiety and escapism. Chappel’s voice is delicate yet biting, like a crisp morning frost. She cuts to the core of a distinctly female experience, Read More
Janet Sutherland’s third collection, Bone Monkey, features a trickster of that name. Sutherland develops a whole mythology for him, from creation through to death, told in sonnets, ballads, prose poems and free verse. In the opening lines of the sonnet, “Prequel”, Out of the void of chaos came the Earth and then Bone Monkey sprang Read More
An arresting title offers a strong launching place for any book but the reader who tries to find the source of this particularly wonderful one will have to wait. The titular poem, unusually, is the very last in this, Ellen Phethean’s most recent, collection. By the time the reader finds it however, she will have Read More
Katherine Stansfield’s debut collection, Playing House, is quirky and surreal, witty and menacing. Her subject matter includes the auction of John Lennon’s tooth, bleach, jetlag, crisp sandwiches and office politics. It’s a collection which is refreshingly unthemed and varied in style, form and voice. In “Africa on BBC One”, an East African Shoebill is addressed: Read More
Sean O’Brien’s sixth full collection, The Beautiful Librarians, may be seen as large in comparison to its range of overplayed political themes. Opening with the poem “Audiology”, the speaker describes hearing the “unfracked oil of Lancashire”, which may not be termed a tired poetic subject yet, but certainly the rhetoric has the potential to become so. Read More
Killochries has been termed Jim Carruth’s first full collection which is possibly unintentionally misleading. Five chapbooks, an illustrated fable and numerous awards lie between this and his already assured debut Bovine Pastoral. The inside cover’s description of a “verse novella” is considerably more accurate. This is a narrative, yet Killochries is neither quite a single Read More
From one son of Dundee to another, Don Paterson, allow me to commend this finely wrought collection – it pulls off something quietly virtuoso that reads keen, true and varied. I sensed something redeeming and intimate about this work, so forgive me if I contrive this review as something like an open letter. This does Read More
Neil Rollinson has published three collections of poetry before Talking Dead, and is a past recipient of a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors. He has also garnered a reputation for being polemical. His case is arguably quite similar to that of Henry Miller, who is often misinterpreted as a misogynist purveyor of smut. Read More
My first response to And She Was (that’s a Talking Heads’ track) is vindicated by the inclusion of a quote from that very song in the frontispiece – “The world was moving, she was right there with it” – very fitting for this collection’s tone and pace. Sarah Corbett has written a remarkable book, which Read More