The Talking Stick: O Pookering Kosh, Raine Geoghegan, Salmon
Sometimes a collection arrives where a reviewer’s task is not so much to seek out and analyse the way the poetry is crafted, but more importantly, to recognise the significance of the subject matter, and in this case the way a culture is being celebrated, recorded, and thus safeguarded.
At least, that’s the way I see it. The Talking Stick: O Pookering Kosh, as Raine Geoghegan says in her auth...
3rd August 2022
The Plumb Line: Hélène Demetriades, Hedgehog
The Plumb Line by Hélène Demetriades is presented in three parts: ‘Beginnings’ in which the poet shares her troubled childhood, from the ever present “ogre” of her father, to the veritable prison of boarding school; ‘Gravity’, where the poet examines motherhood; and ‘Departures’, which deals with th...
30th July 2022
A Triptych of Birds & a Few Loose Feathers: Pratibha Castle, Hedgehog
The title of this impressive debut pamphlet collection is delightful, if a little misleading. Although the first poem features long-tailed tits, and other birds, including blackbirds, sparrows, and cr...
23rd July 2022
In the simmer dim: Barbara Cumbers, Dempsey & Windle
I’ve always wanted to go to Shetland. Geologist Barbara Cumbers spent a month’s residency there in 2017, and has visited the islands on several other occasions. Reading her pamphlet In the summer dim ...
15th July 2022
The Telling: Julia Webb, Nine Arches Press
In Julia Webb’s third poetry collection she examines the complexities of familial relationships, between children and parents and vice versa, and others we closely co-exist with as lovers. It’s a tell...
11th July 2022
Grace Nichols and John Agard bring messages from the Caribbean to Chichester
You might as well describe them as poetry royalty. Wife and husband Grace Nichols and John Agard – both recipients of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry – were the two headliners at the Poetry & Jazz C...
10th July 2022
The poetry of things, and of people, too: reunion of the Troubadour crowd at festival book launch
A live gathering of old poetry friends took place for the first time in well over two years on Monday night, when regulars of Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour met once more, this time at a church...
19th June 2022
Rewriting Shakespeare: poet aims to set record straight on Richard
Has Richard III received a relentlessly bad press over many centuries? And is our most revered of English writers, William Shakespeare, largely to blame? Poet Imogen McHugh certainly thinks so.
Lau...
17th June 2022
The Battle: Antony Owen, Knives Forks and Spoons Press
In this authentic and deeply moving poetry pamphlet, Antony Owen lays down a battle with mental health, ranging from diagnoses and suicide, to the effects depression has on one’s sex life, to line man...
16th June 2022
A moorland beacon: animated prose-poem documents the seasons of Winter Hill
As a child in 1950s Oldham, Winter Hill was just a name we saw on the TV test card, that of a tall tower somewhere near Bolton transmitting a new station called Granada. It being ITV, thus carrying ‘c...
2nd June 2022
Now hear the words of the bards: Bamburgh's Anglo-Saxon bones inspire poets
Northumberland’s rich heritage, and what is termed its ‘Golden Age’, were glimpsed at a remarkable poetry reading below the magnificent and imposing Bamburgh castle on the North Sea coast on Friday ni...
24th May 2022
What Meets the Eye? The Deaf Perspective: eds. Lisa Kelly, Sophie Stone, Arachne Press
This first week of May has been Deaf Awareness Week and this past year has seen Deafness and the Deaf community attract a lot of positive media attention. What a good time to read and reflect on this ...
7th May 2022
The Country With No Playgrounds: Elena Croitoru, Live Canon
Prize-winning poet Elena Croitoru is a British-Romanian writer based in Kent. She holds an MSt (Master of Studies) in creative writing from the University of Cambridge and is a writer of poetry, novel...
2nd May 2022
There: Clare Morris and Nigel Bird, TQ
The poet and writer Clare Morris works in collaboration with the artist Nigel Bird in this engaging and interesting pamphlet. Their works not only interweave and enhance each other but also aim to sup...
30th April 2022
Elgar Country: Peter Sutton, Black Pear Press
Poet, playwright and translator Peter Sutton is a frequent reader at poetry events in the West Midlands and beyond. His alliterative verse translation of Langland’s 7,500-line medieval poem Piers Plow...
28th April 2022
They Race Me In The Streets: Shaun Fallows, Lulu
The title poem of Shaun Fallows’s second collection is uplifting and full of love. It tells how Fallows, a wheelchair user who has cerebral palsy, is surrounded by youngsters in the street who admire ...
28th April 2022
Chintz: Leela Soma, Dreich
This pamphlet by Leela Soma breaks new ground with its multicultural layers, at the threshold between India and Scotland. The two cultures sometimes merge but at other times clash. Soma’s literary wor...
15th April 2022
The Columbus Memoirs and Other Tales: Nick Toczek and Signia Alpha, Mutiny 2000
This 120-page book contains the 19 lyrics/poems of the three albums released by the poet Nick Toczek with the band Signia Alpha led by Matt Webster. The first half is concerned with the words and is w...
9th April 2022
Smudge: Dominic James, Littoral Press
The title poem of Smudge by Dominic James refers to the mark left on glass when a face is pressed against a window. It’s an image of distance, even loneliness, and perhaps a keynote image for this col...
4th April 2022
The Blockade Swallow: Olga Berggolts, tr Veniamin Gushchin, Smokestack
Olga Berggolts was a Soviet poet, playwright and journalist, who broadcast daily on Leningrad radio during the three-year Nazi blockade of the city. One and a half million people starved to death duri...
20th March 2022
Shaking the Persimmon Tree: Marc Woodward, Sea Crow Press
Born in New York, Marc Woodward has been a lifelong resident of rural England. He is the author of three previous collections of poetry, A Fright of Jays (Maquette, 2015), Hide Songs (Green Bottle Pre...
14th March 2022
How To Be A Dressing Gown: Charlotte Oliver, Dreich
A surreal world and a strong sense of identity are depicted in How To Be A Dressing Gown, Charlotte Oliver’s debut pamphlet. Her poems evolve with vivid imagery where a clear voice transports the read...
14th March 2022
Sicilian Elephants: David Cooke, Two Rivers Press
The subjects and areas covered in David Cooke’s latest collection are many and varied as he invites us to go on a quest with him through history. Several poems are set in Mediterranean countries, espe...
9th March 2022
Count the Ways: Finola Scott, Dreich
Finola Scott’s poems develop the idea of what it is like to experience the world through the senses and profoundly felt sensations. A sense of hope and optimism that arises from people meeting each ot...
5th March 2022
Farewell Performance: Vernon Scannell, Smokestack
Vernon Scannell was at one time a professional boxer. He also twice deserted from the army during the second world war, and was twice court-martialled as a result. Yet these later collected poems show...
2nd March 2022
We Have to Leave the Earth: Carolyn Jess-Cooke, Seren
Bearing witness to environmental issues that interweave with our vulnerable and imperfect human condition is the reflection that Carolyn Jess-Cooke develops in her poems.
The collection is divided ...
28th February 2022
Seasons of Damage and Beauty: Paul Surman, Dempsey & Windle
Oxford-based poet Paul Surman has written poetry since he was a teenager but did not make any serious move to get his work published until he retired early in 2004. His work has appeared in numerous m...
28th February 2022
Love & Other Fairy Tales: Adam Horovitz, Indigo Dreams
Last year the poet Adam Horovitz published his latest collection. It was also the year when he lost his father, the legendary Michael Horovitz, at the age of 86.
There is a poignant poem about Mich...
23rd January 2022
Paperfolders: Chris Hemingway, Indigo Dreams
Poet and songwriter Chris Hemingway was born in Mansfield, studied in Leeds and Manchester, and now lives and works in Gloucestershire. His debut pamphlet Party in the Diaryhouse (Picaroon Poetry) was...
16th January 2022
Mollusc: Mark Totterdell, The High Window
Mark Totterdell was born and brought up in rural Somerset and now lives in Exeter where he works as a copywriter. His first collection, This Patter of Traces was published by Oversteps Books in 2014. ...
8th January 2022
Love Algorithm: Eleni Cay, Black Spring Press
Eleni Cay is a Slovakian-born poet living in England and Norway, and writes in a number of languages. She has published one previous full collection, and three pamphlets.
You might say that her lan...
4th January 2022
