Liz Berry opens her debut collection, Black Country, with the jubilant line, “When I became a bird, Lord, nothing could not stop me”, and, indeed, she never stops soaring. Themes range from summers of childhood innocence to sex and marriage, all set against Black Country landscapes, history and characters. In these dazzling, sensuous, and utterly Read More
If Kei Miller hasn’t produced a poetry collection since 2010, the intervening years have been anything but unproductive: two marvellous novels, a blog, a doctorate, editing work and a wonderful collection of essays. Yet Miller’s poetic sensibility is special; his ability to suggest a transcendent luminosity in the single line or a small commonplace detail, Read More
The title of Maggie Sullivan’s second collection is suitably cryptic; the remote suggests detachment as well as control. Sharp, capricious and clever, these poems are interested in process—creative, physical, and political. The opening poem, ”How to build a poem” uses the metaphor of building a wall to demonstrate the creative process: Balance stones, two, three, Read More
Paul Batchelor has brought together a range of diverse perspectives in Reading Barry MacSweeney which, with its insights about MacSweeney’s life and work, adds much to an understanding of Wolf Tongue, reviewed here on the DURA poetry pages. Contributors include WN Herbert, Harriet Tarlo and MacSweeney’s former partner, SJ Litherland. Batchelor doesn’t flinch from the Read More
First published in 2003, Wolf Tongue has been re-printed by Bloodaxe, complemented by Paul Batchelor’s illuminating book of essays, Reading Barry MacSweeney, also reviewed here on the DURA pages. MacSweeney, a prodigious poet, selected most of the poems for Wolf Tongue before his death in 2000. For much of his life, he was little known, having Read More
In a recent online conversation with John Glenday on the subject of poetry editing, Don Paterson confessed to being a notorious re-drafter (ninety variants are not unknown), and fastidious about the ordering of poems in a collection – whilst simultaneously acknowledging that the reader is unlikely to fret much about the outcome. With that in Read More
Sleeping Keys is Jean Sprackland’s third poetry collection. It was published in September of last year, following on from her 2007 Costa Poetry Award winning Tilt. Sleeping Keys “looks back at endings and beginnings” – taking its title from one of the poems that epitomises Londoner Sprackland’s chosen themes. The “obsolete treasure[s]” that are “decommissioned Read More
Sirkka Turkka (b.1939) is widely acknowledged as a major figure in contemporary Finnish poetry. Since her first collection A Room in Space in 1973, she has published some twenty collections to critical acclaim, winning both the Finlandia Prize and the Eino Leino Prize. This collection, A Sure Star in a Moonless Night, has been translated Read More
The back cover of Marianne Morris’s The On All Things Said Moratorium, instead of the usual editorial blurb, presents a statement. The poet refers to how language shapes the way we think and the manners in which we structure our lives, culture and society, adding: “the specific, intentional, and pointed use of language may also Read More
Published in 2013, the year which saw Michael Symmons Roberts’ Drysalter justly lauded, The Lost Boys bears a warm endorsement from Les Murray. However, Penelope Shuttle’s claim on the cover of the collection that Victoria Field is “that rare avis, the religious poet” rings somewhat hollow. Shuttle is on surer ground with “Place is the Read More