Following some of the trends that are now quite common in romantic comedies for younger audiences, The Sculptor is a beautiful and emotional graphic novel with heart and depth. Cartoonist Scott McCloud tells the story of David Smith, a struggling young artist who acquires the ability to sculpt anything he wants using his hands to Read More
How did you let him go? With black ink and legalese How did you let him go? It’d be another year before I could vote [.] The first lines of Imagined Sons’ opening poem “A Birthmother’s Catechism” make an uncompromising, direct introduction to Etter’s most recent collection, which explores nearly two decades of pain and Read More
“Paint and weapons have more in common than I previously realized. They both suggest to their owners surprising and possibly noteworthy things which might be done with them.” Kurt Vonnegut’s weapon was a pen. This is one of the many memorable quotations from the man himself, dotted throughout Kurt Vonnegut: Drawings, a book made up Read More
Mesopotamia, Damian Smyth’s most recent poetry collection, is one which perceptively explores and interrogates the notion of war. Inspired by both his own upbringing in Northern Ireland, and by the recent conflicts with the near East, the poet provides poignant and introspective insights into the lives of forgotten casualties. “Mesopotamia” is, of course, the name Read More
Of the few good things to emerge from the Great War’s horror, arguably the most extraordinary is the poetic canon. Charles Hamilton Sorley (of the haunting “mouthless dead”) gifted Patricia R. Andrew this title in a letter, “The war is a chasm in time. I wish that all journalists who say that war is an Read More
Leaving the Sea is a collection of self-contained short stories which focus on the theme of alienation. Aspects of this theme range from the practical struggles of parenthood to fantastical descriptions of the world at large. Each story features characters who feel isolated because they are unable to communicate their needs to others or, at Read More
‘The seasons seem for a long time to ask nothing of you, but eventually you must brave their familiarity.’ Set between Saltcoats, Blackpool and Afghanistan, Andrew O’Hagan’s fifth novel, The Illuminations, tells the story of Anne Quirk and her nephew Luke as they delve into Anne’s past and confront the disintegration of identity, both personal Read More
Sounding Grounds is poet, screenwriter and actor Vladimir Lucien’s debut collection. Originally from St. Lucia, Lucien has been previously published in various journals including The Caribbean Review of Books, Wasafiri and Small Axe. His work has also been included in the poetry anthology Beyond Sangre Grande (edited by Cyril Dabydeen), and he has worked as Read More
Carol Rumens, in the Guardian (24 March 2014) reviewed one short poem from this collection and used more words than I have for the whole book. The poem she picked, “Critique of Judgement”, is one of my own favourites because it is deceptively simple, using almost clichéd metaphors and similes but configuring them in a Read More
Blood was very much the theme at the Dundee Rep on Friday evening (March 6), as we took our seats for Blood Wedding, a dark tale of love, lust, betrayal and revenge written in 1932 by Spanish poet and dramatist, Frederico García Lorca. The walls of the cafe bar were papered with blood-stained copies of Read More