Knowing she would soon be leaving New York, Mary Austin Speaker decided to create a piece of work which would honour the city she had called home for over a decade. The result is her wonderful new book of poetry, The Bridge. One of the reasons that this collection is so compelling is that it Read More
In a context beyond the confines of her pamphlet, Dialogue on the Dark, Nuala Watt has stated that “If you have a serious and/or lifelong condition, you need to develop a psychological firewall […], an essential piece of psychological kit” (see note below). Indeed the first page in the pamphlet is devoted to Watt’s response Read More
I practised deep inhaling, hoping, like you, to float. You travelled so light, your shoes never lined up for cleaning on Saturday nights. I imagined a flutter of postcards, you summoning me. The thick thunk of junk mail daily hit the floor, deposited by the wheezing postie. I named a constellation after you. It’s still Read More
Sister, it’s time to trace the stories on your skin. Slick our myths across your chest. Open your wounds. Begin [.] Amazon charts Northumbrian poet Catherine Ayres’ journey through breast cancer, a mastectomy and the fallout for herself her family, friends and relationships. Normally, I avoid reviewing friends’ work, but I have made an exception Read More
s s u n n s s e t t the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the CrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrook road road road road road road road road road road road road road road road Most poets prefer to work with a laptop or perhaps a pen and paper. Read More
“Shine the torch, count the eyes and divide by two”. My own mother’s description of checking the sheep always seemed odd to me but Gillian Clarke says much the same thing in her poem “Ark”: We wake nightly in the early hours, dress for the rain To count their faces in the flashlight, their glittering Read More
The taut neologism of the title, under Paul Klee’s glorious painting “The Fruit, 1932”, in tandem with the titular poem and the opening of “Ultragreen”, convinced me I was about to read a collection devoted to the study of synathesia. I was very wrong, despite that first section’s immersion in colour which fades slowly into Read More
The American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain”. Katharine Towers’ second poetry collection, The Remedies, is a clarion call to a kind of modern day transcendentalism. She might not wear Read More
They say a lifelike portrait has eyes that follow you round the room; the four pairs of eyes on the cover of this collection by Maureen Duffy seem to do just that. The striking design by Rupert Gowar-Cliffe is arresting. Whose eyes are these? Are they Duffy’s? Or are they our mind’s eyes as we Read More
I wanted people to sit still for one goddam minute but they flash through your life – portraits are for the dead. In these lines, Tamar Yoseloff voices Jackson Pollock as part of a remarkable narrative sequence, but such is her versatility that it may also speak of her own prolific, multi-faceted output. An American, Read More