Sanah Ahsan (Bloomsbury Poetry, 2024); pbk, £9.99 Sanah Ahsan’s I cannot be good until you say it is a poetry collection of uncompromising vulnerability. Awarded the Out-Spoken Performance Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize, the White Review Poet’s Prize and the Bridport Prize, Ahsan’s confrontational and questioning poetry is Read More
The Felix Dennis shortlist is drawn from first collections, previous winners include Don Paterson, Simon Armitage, Liz Berry, and Rachael Boast. What, therefore, does Rowan Evans’ first collection offer which might see the poet follow in those auspicious footprints?
The collection’s title ‘A Method, A Path’ possibly identifies its own manifesto; themes are sometimes explored across connected sequences where each poem proposes new forms with new rules….
The sonnet is a design classic; it retains its formal appeal, with contemporary giants such as Don Paterson and Imtiaz Dharker regularly inspired by its elegance and infinite variety. Trinidadian poet Anthony Joseph has used the form to explore his relationship with his father and with himself across a sequence of more than 50 poems.
There are certain realities accessible only to a handful of people. Across 300 pages this book takes the reader to the unique reality of Scotland’s West Coast and offers a detailed account of life and culture in the region. However, as every reality, it’s not for everyone. Ian Stephen comes from the Isle of Lewis Read More
A Google search will inform curious readers that the word ‘’bardo’’ references an old Tibetan legend: souls making the transition from death to Nirvana, or, if they are less fortunate, to begin again in a new body, must first pass through the bardo. Think of it as a stopping station between different states of existence Read More
Death is an important subject in biology. After all, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace independently arrived at the concept of natural selection by contemplating death. After reading Thomas Malthus’s notorious Essay on Population, they realised that, unchecked by death, the ability of living things to reproduce would quickly result in astronomical numbers of every Read More
There are two major problems with The Improbability of Love. The first is that it’s just too long and the second is that it’s dull. The large cast of characters and their sub-plots are exhausting. There is an ensemble cast of at least eighteen different characters, each with a section dedicated to their point of Read More
