[S]ongs made dearer when gone than ever they were, sung by heroes, animal spirits[.] There has been a need for this volume for some time, a need perhaps fully established at Riley’s Light, the 2015 Helen Mort-organised Leeds University conference. Indeed many luminaries, Vahni Capildeo, Andrew McMillan, Ian Duhig and more have shared that journey. Read More
They say if you don’t like the Scottish weather just wait a bit and it will change. Arguably, the same might be said of Bear. This collection is so varied that if the style of one poem is not to the reader’s taste, moving on is hardly problematic and very shortly a more agreeable offering Read More
Home Front is a new volume of poetry by four women who have each had a husband or son who has been to a combat zone. Bryony Doran, Jehanne Dubrow, Elyse Fenton and Isabel Palmer are the poets, whose voices tell of having a loved one in armed conflict. Each poet has a collection within Read More
Their keening need will fold its sound, bred in the humid shells they’ll make ‒ to shift, and free (peculiar as themselves) new birds. Jim Stewart, from “Oystercatchers” Before he died, Jim and I discussed the idea of having some kind of Memorial for him, based loosely around the poetics of the American Poet Joe Read More
This is the work of a life cut short. Ian Abbot died in a 1989 road accident, the year after his debut collection Avoiding the Gods was published. He was only 42. Finishing the Picture, in the words of editor Richie McCaffery, is an attempt to secure the reputation of a poet whose work has, Read More
Thomas McCarthy’s new collection Pandemonium is a war cry. Written post-economic collapse in Ireland (2008), he uses the tools of his trade to rage, amass and, ultimately, heal: (…) let pandemonium Cease, let the wild confetti of poets Be withdrawn from the bitterness of the streets. This passionate, thoughtful collection is at once a response Read More
Jos Smith’s Subterranea is a poetry collection of vivid illustrations for searching imaginations. The poems explore and expand, the intimate space between internal and external landscapes. While it often focuses on specific settings, the collection in its entirety is about the pilgrimage from one reality to another. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the “Subterranean” as both Read More
In a turbulent political world, where the current US administration’s denial of climate change is clear, UK-based Illinois poet Carrie Etter’s Scar seems profoundly relevant. Informed by former government climate change reports, conversations with the Met Office and interviews with her fellow Illinoisans, this single long poem explores the impact that global warming is wreaking Read More
Temples and monuments reach for transcendence, beauty lies in the carcass of an insect, cities within cities, take your eyes from the heavens, look long and deep. These words greet us at the collection’s beginning, encapsulating beautifully the essence of William Letford’s Dirt. In the eyes of many, skywards is not necessarily paired with insects Read More
Shadows dart throughout What The Wolf Heard; “skeletons” confirming the collection’s theme: their heads turn slightly in a synchronized intensification and lock on something just out of our vision. Daragh Breen’s poems are crowded with spirits and ghosts, their very ethereal nature characterizing his focus on the almost indefinable. Published in 2016, What The Wolf Read More