What’s so great about simplicity? We’re always being told that the simple life is the right kind of life, uncluttered by unnecessary anxieties and the desires that fuel them. The simple message is the honest one, and the simple fact the thing that really happened. Now of course “simple” has got all complicated by terrifying Read More
Anatomy of a Soldier is the debut novel of Harry Parker. He joined the British Army when he was twenty three and served as a Captain in both Iraq and Afghanistan. You would be forgiven for thinking that an adventurous tale of derring-do would fit this profile, but in this book the author should be Read More
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is widely considered one of the greatest plays to come out of the 20th century. Premiered in 1949, it is a tragedy that examines the demise of a working man and how society, along with the character’s own delusions, can torture a weakened soul. When my MLitt class Read More
Proudly they stroll in absorbed dignity towards bothlabatsatsi where the sky lightens as if the handsome baratani are drawing up the new day. Peter Jarvis’ first poetry collection, Nights of a Shining Moon opens at dawn in “Aubade”, with a hopeful image of two lovers walking into the sunrise, the persona watching them and listening Read More
Tabard Inn to Canterbury Cathedral, poet pilgrims competing for free picks, Chaucer Tales, track by track, here’s the remix [.] What does the word re-mix mean to you? Personally, I always associated re-mixes with music, taking an old song, lay it over a new beat, reharmonize the melody and BAM! Simple. But did you know Read More
Its sound could wither the feathers of eagles make fire from ice play tricks with existence changing form at a whim. The raven: an omen of bad luck to the superstitious, a notable character in myths and fairytales, and self-evidently the predominant figure in Glasgow-based poet Nalini Paul’s The Raven’s Song. While poems from this Read More
“But why linger? Why stay in this world of oak and tree and rock?” A quote from Hesiod’s Theonogy opens Tess Taylor’s collection Work & Days. The poems that follow – described by Taylor herself as “latter day Georgics” – serve as poetic responses to a series of questions: What kind of world do we Read More
The mysterious thin threads of rain, wrist-high beneath a bright February near-cloudlessness, beneath the chiming of the wire and metal masts of the yacht club, over the heads of bairns and dogs: they sheen like web and are gone, while the crows lift and drop, drop and lift, the mussels on the shore. © Read More
And the wild ways we think we walk Just bring us here again. In her latest poetry collection, The Bonniest Companie, Kathleen Jamie considers not only the Scotland of today, but the Scotland of the past, of her childhood and its timeless myth-shrouded wilderness. The poet presents the natural and political landscapes of her native Read More
“People imagine poets are perpetually inspired. This is not true.” This perfectly captures the foundational ideas on which Christodoulos Makris’ second collection, The Architecture of Chance, is built. Described by Rick O’Shea as “one of Ireland’s leading contemporary explorers of experimental poetics”, Makris’ collection examines the nature of chance encounters in contemporary society, and how Read More