Arctic Elegies Peter Davidson, Carcanet, 2022, pb., 72pps. £11.99 DEREK TURNER feels impelled to look to the north There are poets associated with particular places, or special states of mind, but Peter Davidson has made a geo-poetical genre of his own, as celebrant of a cardinal point. His interests are wide-ranging, but magnetized in one…
LIAM GUILAR continues his epic of early Britain The story so far. In the 5th century Vortigern’s attempt to hold the imperial province of Britannia together has been defeated, not by external enemies but by British rebels led by Vortimer, his eldest son. Vortimer is a devout Christian and has invited the Pope to send…
Image: Derek Turner The Waste Land – A Biography of a Poem Matthew Hollis, Faber & Faber, 2022, 524pps., £20 LIAM GUILAR is disappointed by a would-be biography of the landmark poem If any twentieth century poem deserves a biography, it is T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. First published in 1922, it was, and is,…
DANIEL GUSTAFSSON has published volumes of poetry in both English and Swedish, most recently Fordings (Marble Poetry, 2020). New poems appear in Temenos Academy Review, Pennine Platform, in several anthologies by Black Bough Poetry, and in Sunken Island: An Anthology of British Poetry (Bournbrook Press, 2022). As an occasional scholar, with a PhD in Philosophy, Daniel has a…
Ravenser Odd Michael Daniels, Poets House Pamphlets, 2022, 26 pps, £7 LIAM GUILAR admires an evocation of the eroding East Riding This is Michael Daniels’ first collection – the traditional slim pamphlet. The publisher, Poets House Pamphlets, of Oxford, has produced a fine object, printed on good paper, with understated, subtle artwork to enhance the…
MARYANN CORBETT is the author of five books, most recently In Code (Able Muse, 2020). Her work has appeared widely in journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including 32 Poems, Rattle, and the Los Angeles Review of Books in the US, and The Dark Horse and PN Review in the UK. Her poetry has…
JOHN BINGHAM has been writing poetry for nearly 20 years, from his first limerick, 'Barry the Snail', to his first competition win with 'I miss you'. John believes poetry is an amazing tool to help with expressing feeling or aiding with mental health issues and hopes his poems can one day help others. My Offer…
COLIN JAMES has a couple of chapbooks of poetry published – Dreams Of The Really Annoying, from Writing Knights Press and A Thoroughness Not Deprived of Absurdity, from Piski's Porch Press – and a book of poems, Resisting Probability, from Sagging Meniscus Press Top View of a House The new subdivision, “A Bomber's Paradise”, grew…
Ezekiel's vision The True Gods Attend You Clarence Caddell, Bonfire Books, 2022, 71 pages, £11.80 MICHAEL YOST finds a collection of original religiously-inspired verse rather forced There are two major traditions pertinent to verse literature that are seldom engaged in, but for all that are the more interesting when an artist does make use of…
PETER LILLIOS is an auditor and poet based in Sound Beach, New York. He writes: ‘I believe that poetry — and particularly formal verse — shows its strengths most readily when presented as an auditory experience. When spoken or sung expertly, the inherent musicality of well-crafted verse comes to the fore, creating a powerfully synergistic…