Chris Arthur’s latest essay collection is unmistakably about hummingbirds. However, this innocuous fact is far more revealing than one might expect. Arthur’s hummingbirds are varied; sometimes they are avian, but they are also objects, words, creatures and people. To be a hummingbird is to capture the attention of the beholder and in doing so, challenge Read More
Mary Leader, an American lawyer-turned-poet, has found a home with the British-based Publisher Shearsman Books. She Lives There Still is her second title to be published with them, and they are due to re-issue her two earlier works that are currently out-of-print. A fifth collection has already been completed. Perhaps this match should hold no Read More
Kennedy’s Children, by Robert Patrick opens in a New York bar. The year is 1975. The month, February, is the one usually considered the most depressing all over the northern hemisphere. The day is St Valentine’s Day. Six lonely characters inhabit the set, including the barkeep. The play tracks the lives of five archetypal Americans Read More
Following the success of his 2016 crowdfunded anthology The Good Immigrant, Nikesh Shukla returns with his latest novel. The One Who Wrote Destiny features some of the issues surrounding race in the UK that were the basis of The Good Immigrant but offers a whole lot more. It is a story about family, loss, and Read More
There’s an unexplained comfort in reading Luck is the Hook despite many of the poems dealing with pain and, often, discomfort. Each one contains a space devoid of explanation, a sacred place of intimacy for both the poet and the reader. Awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014, Luck is the Hook is Read More
The new installation of Laurence Weiner at The McManus marks the first time that the ARTIST ROOMS modern and contemporary art collection have displayed in Dundee. This touring programme is delivered by the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate, although Weiner and his office were directly involved in the planning of this exhibition. Certainly, the Read More
No voices just a roar and the birdsong of gunfire in winter sunlight slouched down the well of leather seats yielding diminishing her height a dead giveaway: this the mother of all riots speak only Farsi There are autobiographical narratives, then there are those grounded in exceptional circumstances and Read More
The poet Jim Stewart (1952-2016) earned that rarest of writer’s accolades: of being well-loved by those who not only knew his work but knew him. He had a well-deserved reputation as a gifted and inspiring teacher who, in typical Dundonian fashion, seemed to hide his calling under a genuine sense of duty, so that his Read More
For long after dark and before first light a clamorous pair of oystercatchers courts in an echoing circumference of air and sky. Anxiously they whoop and wheel by day, by night. The repetitions mean that she’s in season and will concede his ancient cry that seed should not be lost. Makeshift, a nest will be Read More
When Clare Best was asked by her dying father to help him write his memoir, she took the brave decision of using that process to examine her own, deeply painful past. By interweaving transcripts of interviews with her father, descriptions of cine films made by him and her own memories of events, The Missing List Read More