Reviews
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The confessional as poetry’s play within a play: on Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana
Matthew Stewart Deeply personal collections, packed with poems that narrate break-ups and emotional turmoil, tend to encourage the reader to narrow the distance between the poet and the lyrical ‘I’ […]
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On ‘Toys / Tricks / Traps’ by Christopher Reid
Mark Wynne Whilst Christopher Reid has often disguised deeply autobiographical work behind sophisticated role play – the fictional female translator of an Eastern European poet in the extraordinary Katerina Brac […]
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‘Rife with schools of shadow’: on the poetry of James Peake
Lily Searstone Through fragmented visions and memories, James Peake’s second collection, The Star in the Branches (Two Rivers, 2022), seamlessly distils the past, the starkness of […]
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On ‘The Storm in the Piano’ by Christopher James
Neil Elder Christopher James – winner of the 2008 National Poetry Competition and author of several volumes of poetry – remains “criminally underrated”, as Martin Malone once […]
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On ‘Fear of Forks’ by Hilary Menos
Matthew Stewart One of the main reasons for exerting restraint in poetry is to play with what is held back, left unsaid. The portrayal of linguistic and […]
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On ‘Book of Days’ by Phoebe Power
Rob A. Mackenzie Book of Days (Carcanet, 2022) is Phoebe Power’s account of making the ‘Camino’, a pilgrimage from St Jean Pied de Port in France to […]
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‘Parts of us regenerate, others don’t’: On Dan O’Brien
James Peake The photojournalist and Pulitzer-prize winner, Paul Watson, is a friend, collaborator and in “complicated ways, almost family” to the poet and playwright Dan O’Brien. […]
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On ‘Moving Day’ by Jenny King
Regina Weinert “Jenny King was born in London during the Blitz and wrote poetry from childhood”, start the short biographical notes in King’s second and third pamphlets, Tenants and Midsummer, published […]
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On ‘High Desert’ by André Naffis-Sahely
Richie McCaffery It’s been a long time since I enjoyed a collection of poetry as much as André Naffis-Sahely’s new offering, High Desert (Bloodaxe, 2022). That said, […]
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On ‘Glut’ by Ramona Herdman
Matthew Stewart It might initially seem snide or negative to suggest that a poet’s work is best represented by their idiosyncratic use of one specific punctuation mark, […]
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On ‘Summer/Break’ by Richie McCaffery
Declan Ryan Richie McCaffery’s third collection, Summer/Break (Shoestring, 2022), is one of quiet peril. Everywhere one looks there is a quest, however forlorn, for salvation, a desperation […]
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On ‘Central Air’ by George Bilgere
Neil Elder In America, George Bilgere is widely published and revered, winner of a Pushcart Prize and a regular in many of the best journals. How his work […]
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On ‘Hollow Palaces: An Anthology of Modern Country House Poems’
Rishi Dastidar An odd place to start but bear with. The Fence, a new-ish, waggish magazine (think Private Eye meets Popbitch) shared the following snippet in a […]
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On ‘The Sleep Road’ by Stewart Sanderson
Matthew Stewart In his first full collection, The Sleep Road (Tapsalterie, 2022), Stewart Sanderson addresses several issues that are currently popular among many poets of his generation: […]
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A statement for the importance of poems in a life: on Jonathan Davidson’s ‘A Commonplace’
Daniel Bennett A sense of place abounds in Jonathan Davidson’s A Commonplace (Smith-Doorstep, 2020), and while that might seem natural from the title, the ‘place’ here derives […]
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Three pamphlets reviewed by Richie McCaffery
Richie McCaffery It is apt that John Greening recently edited the Carcanet selection of Iain Crichton Smith’s poems. There’s an anecdote that does the rounds in Scottish […]
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Pushing her own boundaries: on Alison Brackenbury’s ‘Thorpeness’
Matthew Stewart Alison Brackenbury’s new collection, Thorpeness (Carcanet Press, 2022), provides a perfect rebuttal to Larkin’s notorious disavowal of a poet’s obligation to develop. This might […]
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On ‘Rite of Passage’ by Dom Bury & ‘What Fire’ by Alice Miller
Charlie Baylis Environmental poetry has made a comeback, with terror-infused natural disaster coverage and polarising climate protests riding high in the news agenda, coupled with young, idealistic […]
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‘Marginalised and Pigeonholed’: a re-evaluation of Evangeline Paterson
Matthew Stewart urges the re-evaluation of Evangeline Paterson as a major poet of her generation Blurbs tend to get a justified bashing these days for their breathless […]
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On ‘Bloom’ by Sarah Westcott
Daniel Bennett The poems in this luminous book, Bloom (Pavilion Press, 2021) are tight, fragmented things, varying in shape and typesetting, in a style both abstract and committed: […]