Do you remember when you were learning to read and it was both difficult and exciting to mouth the next word? Then there’s the thrill of recognition. The simple rhyming title of Vahni Capildeo’s chapbook seas and trees – presented in lowercase sans serif typeface – may take the reader back to those days. One Read More
Sara Hirsch’s debut is a photo album of memories described by a woman not trying to be anyone other than herself. Still Falling is a collection of both rare and everyday encounters which are often shocking, and always personal. The title itself suggests a continuation of mistake making and learning, rather than a Wonder Woman 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
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
…one about to dive in & about to dive in & still about to dive & & &[.] There is an element of this joint collection by Alec Finlay and Ken Cockburn, the road north, which seems to tease the reader into believing Read More
Seren Book’s In Reality: Selected Poems is the first major glimpse of poetry by award winning Luxembourger Jean Portante, translated for English speaking readers. The book gathers selected poems from his major collections, notably In Reality and What Does and What Doesn’t Come to Pass, and provides the original French in parallel with Zoë Skoulding’s Read More