Kendel Hippolyte’s collection, night vision, wanders through themes of nature, place, history and critiques of human conditions and also of capitalism. He writes in a dramatic style, betraying his background in theatre; his poems creates a vastness and interconnectedness, even when they are so clearly afixed to a certain place and time, and by a Read More
The Touch of Time, Stewart Conn’s recently published collection, serves as a retrospective of a lifetime spent writing, concluding with a section of new poems. Ayrshire-born Conn is one of Scotland’s quiet poets who has created a steady body of work over the last 40 years, making him one of the most established and appreciated Read More
Meeting Buddha in Dumbarton is an enchanting new work from writer and artist Nikki Magennis. At once deeply personal and thematically universal, its lovely (author-designed) cover encases a varied collection of poems which deal with some grand concepts while still managing to remain grounded and sharply focused on people. Feminism and history are core topics, Read More
Of late, Tom Pow has been preoccupied with journeys. Astonishingly, he has two full collections out this year, and both have journeys at their heart. In A Wild Adventure Pow traces the life of Thomas Watling, an artist from Dumfries sent to Botany Bay, Australia, convicted of forgery. Atlas of Scotland, with its beautiful cover Read More
Brian Johnstone’s third collection, Dry Stone Work, is prefaced by a quote from Nobel Laureate, Orhan Pamuk: “The stones we writers use are words…” The collection is then divided into four sections, each named for a different aspect of dry stone walling: “Footings”, “Tracings”, “Heartings”, and “Copings”. Across the four sections, concepts of artifice and Read More
Joseph P. Wood’s Fold of the Map has a consistency of voice which is at once brutal and reflective, encouraging a range of open associations through a style which can only be described as consistently fragmentary. At times, especially when the poems are read aloud, the speaker flits between a sensory bombardment with descriptions of Read More
On September 13th, 1940, the Ellerman Line ship “the S.S. City of Benares’”set sail from Liverpool for Canada. Among the passengers on board were 90 evacuee children. Late in the evening, on September 17th, the ship was sighted by a German U-boat, which fired two torpedoes. The torpedoes missed, but just after midnight, a third Read More
If one were to look for extensive fire metaphors in Notes for Lighting a Fire, one would most likely be disappointed. Gerry Cambridge’s first poetry collection in eight years is not so much interested in fire itself, but rather what its origins are, what effects it has, and perhaps most importantly, the consequences of its Read More
Pedro Serrano is an exquisite poet, and this is a collection that sings with virtuosic touches – Serrano’s verse itself, the work of the translator and the scope of the Arc Visible Poets series, which profiles both poet and translator. Parallel text editions are such a pleasure, even if one does not read the original Read More
Critically acclaimed poet, and former Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Dundee (2003-5), Colette Bryce was born in Derry, and grew up during the Troubles. The Whole and Rain-domed Universe is a retrospective impression of that time, a keenly-felt and often poignant memoir of childhood and family life, set against the backdrop of Read More