Janet Sutherland’s third collection, Bone Monkey, features a trickster of that name. Sutherland develops a whole mythology for him, from creation through to death, told in sonnets, ballads, prose poems and free verse. In the opening lines of the sonnet, “Prequel”, Out of the void of chaos came the Earth and then Bone Monkey sprang Read More
Katherine Stansfield’s debut collection, Playing House, is quirky and surreal, witty and menacing. Her subject matter includes the auction of John Lennon’s tooth, bleach, jetlag, crisp sandwiches and office politics. It’s a collection which is refreshingly unthemed and varied in style, form and voice. In “Africa on BBC One”, an East African Shoebill is addressed: Read More
Is that love on the tip of the tongue of the river, never too wounded to care for the wounded, singing the single-flowered clubrush to sleep like a prodigal daughter returned from the deep, raising the black-hearted ravens as though they were kith, having a fling, now and then, with an agate or freshwater fish Read More
This is an edited transcript with headings inserted for ease of reading and navigation. The video of the interview can be accessed by clicking the above image. Lindsay: Well, welcome everybody and it’s a great pleasure to introduce Nell Nelson here today from Happenstance Press. Nell’s a local publisher but also a poet and performer Read More
Clare Best’s first collection, Excisions, opens with a sequence entitled ‘Matryoshka’ (“nested Russian dolls”) about the death of her parents, and feelings of grief and memory. Best’s poems, which have an intensity and physicality about them, include arresting descriptions of the body, as for example in “Stitch”, My grandmother knew about seams- her abdomen ruched Read More