“They all want the Germans gone, just like you do. But don’t be thinking that makes you welcome”. Set in the Ukraine in 1941, one of the darkest periods of that country’s history, Seiffert’s story is told in language which seems, in a remarkable way, to echo the rhythms of the native language of her Read More
Such men rise in the ranks and can only be removed by death or revolt … (“Candidate A”) In the 1970s, before the advent of our daily intake of internet reporting, the name Idi Amin Dada evoked a vague sense of horror too distant for the details of his reign of terror to be clear. Read More
Flocks of Words, Kate Innes’s debut poetry collection, draws deeply on her love of the medieval, the mythical and the imaginative, which she overlays with a profound connection with nature and the Shropshire hills in particular. Her music is the music of distant stars and of creation, sometimes almost Miltonian in its wonder and terror. Read More
“Feeling by themselves ain’t what matters.” The Mare, Mary Gaitskill. Think of a girl called Velvet, a dangerous horse, a riding competition, a growing obsession; the elements of one of the most-loved children’s films in the world. Mary Gaitskill’s “The Mare” draws freely and openly on the stories of National Velvet and Black Beauty, but 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
“[Claudette] doesn’t see a room, an alcove, a piece of flooring: she sees a work in progress, just waiting to be embarked upon.” This Must Be The Place. If there is one thing Maggie O’Farrell’s loyal readers expect, it’s a good disappearance. In this respect, her Costa short-listed This Must Be The Place follows in Read More
I was born between the Creggan and the Bogside, To the sounds of crowds and smashing glass… “Derry”, The Whole and Rain-domed Universe To enter into conversation with Colette Bryce is to be drawn into a life marked not only by an Irish Catholic childhood, with its pleasures as well as its vivid memories of Read More
Small Consolations, is Gary Glauber’s first collection. Divided into four sections “Occupations”, “Explorations”, “Situations” and “Infatuations”, this meaty volume appears not only dense in format on the page, but also uniformly dense in thought, image and rhythm. The titles of the sections themselves reflect the degree to which Glauber uses alliteration, assonance and rhyme to Read More