What I Heard on the Last Cassette Player in the World: Ben Ray, Indigo Dreams
Ben Ray’s second collection is a medley of experimental poems alongside absurd, surreal propositions apparently thrown out ad lib, and sincerely felt and expressed meditations on political, environmental and existential themes.
He is a master of the sustained metaphor, as in ‘The day they decimalised the words.’ He plays with the historical event of currency decimalisation in Britain in 1971, s...
17th December 2019
How Time Is In Fields: Jean Atkin, Indigo Dreams
Poet, writer and educator Jean Atkin has worked on a variety of residencies in both England and Scotland and provides workshops and readings to schools, festivals and community organisations. Her poetry has been commissioned for Radio 4, and featured on Best Scottish Poems by the Scottish Poetry Lib...
15th December 2019
The Poetry of Worcestershire anthology, Offa's Press
It is the county of Woodbine Willie, Basil d’Oliveira, apples, pears and plums, a certain kind of sauce, floods, Elgar, and steam trains. Some poets appear a little diffident at first about its appeal...
10th December 2019
The Night I Spoke Irish in Surrey: Richard Hawtree, Dempsey & Windle
Perhaps you need to be as well read as Richard Hawtree to truly appreciate the poetry in his rich, debut pamphlet collection. On the other hand, maybe it doesn’t matter. Most of the poems are inspired...
10th December 2019
Ripening Cherries: ed.by David Bingham and Simon Fletcher, Offa's Press
In recent times, the Japanese art of haiku and its related forms, the tanka and the haibun, have become increasingly popular in poetry circles throughout the UK. Offa’s Press recently played an active...
5th December 2019
City of Departures: Helen Tookey, Carcanet
Helen Tookey teaches creative writing at Liverpool John Moores University. Her debut collection, Missel-Child (Carcanet 2014), was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre prize for first full collect...
30th November 2019
Recovery Songs: Ralph Dartford, Valley Press
The cover of this confessional poetry collection has the poet, head bowed, holding a mic. Exposed. Recovery Songs by Ralph Dartford is not an easy read; it is not intended to be.
In an afterword to...
20th November 2019
Momentary Turmoil: Robin Thomas, Cinnamon Press
Robin Thomas writes poems of deceptive simplicity and often vivid visual imagery. He is inspired by paintings from the Renaissance, incidents in war and at sea, jazz musicians, railways and family rel...
18th November 2019
The Blue Tree: Stephen Boyce, Indigo Dreams
Stephen Boyce is an adviser to heritage and arts bodies, a prize-winning poet and the author of two previous collections, Desire Lines (Arrowhead 2010) and The Sisyphus Dog (Worple 2014) and two poetr...
4th November 2019
Docklands: Damian Walford Davies, Seren
Damian Walford Davies has taught in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Cardiff University since 2013. He is now pro-vice chancellor for the university’s college of arts, humanities, and...
28th October 2019
The Big J vs The Big C: Janine Booth, Flapjack
There is a sobering and rather worrying statistic that has emerged from Cancer Research UK since 2015, which is that one in two people will develop cancer at some point in their lives (published in th...
27th October 2019
Anthology of poetry in endangered languages launched by National Poetry Library
Two years ago the National Poetry Library launched an ambitious, global project to track down poetry written in endangered languages, to collect and preserve them. On Saturday the library’s Chris McCa...
22nd October 2019
It's goodbye from him ... Julian Jordon hands over baton at Poetry Jam's 10th anniversary
It was the end of an era at Write Out Loud’s Poetry Jam at Marsden jazz festival on Sunday. The ever-popular and energetic Julian Jordon bowed out after a decade of compering the event, and handed ove...
16th October 2019
Baldwin's Catholic Geese: Keith Hutson, Bloodaxe
Keith Hutson is a poet who has emerged to widespread acclaim via a more unconventional route than most. He is a former Coronation Street and comedy writer, whose debut collection, Baldwin’s Catholic G...
14th October 2019
Distance Sweet on my Tongue: Kerry Darbishire, Indigo Dreams
Songwriter and poet Kerry Darbishire lives on a Cumbrian fellside in the Lake District with her artist husband Stephen. Her first poetry collection, A Lift of Wings, was published by Indigo Dreams in ...
2nd October 2019
A Map Towards Fluency: Lisa Kelly, Carcanet
Walter Benjamin said that “Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed; an architectural one, where it is constructed; and a textile one, where it is ...
19th September 2019
Humanagerie: ed. by Sarah Doyle and Allen Ashley, Eibonvale
The borderland between humans and animals has been a source of fascination for writers down the ages. Think of Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, the lycanthropy of Ferdinand in Webster’s The Duchess of Mal...
12th September 2019
Bunty, I Miss You!: Heather Moulson, Dempsey & Windle
Heather Moulson is a spoken word poet like no other. Her poems of adolescent reminiscences catalogue the slights and affronts she received as a teenager, her reality behind the romantic tales of the g...
5th September 2019
In Her Shambles: Elizabeth Parker, Seren
Elizabeth Parker grew up in the Forest of Dean, and currently lives on the harbour in Bristol. She has a BA in English literature and creative writing, and an MA in mythology. She has published a poet...
8th August 2019
Let's hear it as spoken word reclaims the stage: poet launches book on its rebirth
Spoken word is no longer “underground” or “emerging” … if you look at the sweep of history and poetry’s oral tradition , it’s page/written poetry that is the aberration … Kate Tempest draws a bigger a...
5th August 2019
Lunar: Keisha Thompson, Cultureword
Keisha Thompson is known as a poet with a charismatic performance profile and an intellectual passion for maths. Her show Man on the Moon has won the Manchester Theatre award for best studio productio...
4th August 2019
September: Cherry Doyle, Offa's Press
Cherry Doyle, who recently completed a BA in creative writing with the Open University, is one of the co-ordinators of Blakenhall Writers’ Group based in Wolverhampton. Born in Shrewsbury, she now liv...
26th July 2019
LZRD: Alyson Hallet and Penelope Shuttle, Indigo Dreams
LZRD is a title that is notable for its absence of vowels. The human brain, so used to recognising words, quickly fills in the blanks. In the poem of the same name, Lzrd is described as a “squeezer of...
21st July 2019
The Quality of Mersey, edited by Barry Woods
Knowing your place is all the rage these days; just look at the well-deserved success of the current Places of Poetry map. (And if you haven’t already posted a poem or two up there, make sure you do s...
9th July 2019
London Undercurrents: Joolz Sparkes and Hilaire, Holland Park Press
London Undercurrents is the product of five years of in-depth research, part-funded by an Arts Council Grant, by two poets, Joolz Sparkes and Hilaire, into the long-forgotten histories of London’s uns...
28th June 2019
Landings: Richard Williams, Dempsey & Windle
It takes a brave poet to open a collection with two poems that both mention stationery. After all, it’s not at first glance the most poetic of subjects. But then, think of “so many words still to be u...
18th June 2019
Family Likeness: Michael Curtis, Cultured Llama
Michael Curtis grew up in Liverpool, attended Oxford and Sheffield universities, worked in library and cultural services and events management and now lives in Kent. His work has been published widely...
2nd June 2019
Many Skies Have Fallen: Maggie Sawkins, Wild Mouse Press
This collection contains lyrical and evocative poems that were written as a response to the death of a young man who drowned in Ireland’s river Shannon. Janusz Jasicki was the partner of the daughter ...
2nd June 2019
The music of time: Roger McGough still welcomes us all into poetry's big tent
Time was when Roger McGough was regarded as one of the voices of a new poetry generation. As one of the Liverpool Poets, with Brian Patten and Adrian Henri, he encouraged thousands to have the confide...
19th May 2019
Of Course, the Yellow Cab: Ken Champion, The High Window
Ken Champion is a poet, novelist and critic whose work has been published widely both at home and abroad. His publications include three full collections of poetry, a volume of short stories, two nove...
15th May 2019
Going to bed with the moon: Jenny Hockey, Oversteps
In my copy of Going to bed with the moon Jenny Hockey has written: “Hope you enjoy some of these – a few new faces of death included.” Hockey is a retired sociology professor from Sheffield. Her speci...
10th May 2019
Negative of a Group Photograph: Azita Ghahreman, trans. Maura Dooley, Bloodaxe
This is a rich selection of poems from five books written over the last 40 years by the Iranian poet Azita Ghahreman, and translated into English by Maura Dooley with the help of the filmmaker Ellum S...
4th May 2019
Difficult Women: Nicola Jackson, Indigo Dreams
The absorbing poetry of Nicola Jackson in this collection, which jointly won the 2017 Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize, grips the reader’s attention with its strong commitment to the feminist cause and th...
28th April 2019
Amoretti: Paul AW Sutherland, Dempsey & Windle
It was the title that drew me: Amoretti, the name of a sequence of sonnets written by Edmund Spenser to the woman who would become his second wife. It was published, like so many other sonnet sequence...
22nd April 2019
I Meet Myself Returning: John Darwin, Flapjack Press
I first met and heard John Darwin at a Write Out Loud night in Hebden Bridge in 2010, and knew at once that he was an accomplished and interesting poet. Since then he has been the organiser at Write O...
11th April 2019
Counting Backwards: Helen Dunmore, Bloodaxe
It is tempting to reiterate that Helen Dunmore was a poet first and last, both metaphorically and chronologically, but this would be to see prose and poetry as rigidly separate. To me her poetry alway...
27th March 2019
become something frail: Stuart Buck, Selcouth Station Press
Stuart Buck is possessed of an astonishing imagination coupled with an enviable ability to birth fully-formed poems of unique, musical, and mind-bending originality. become something frail is his seco...
22nd March 2019
The Soil Never Sleeps: Adam Horovitz, Palewell Press
How much use is a poet down on the farm? Adam Horovitz was invited by the Pasture-led Livestock Association to be their poet in residence for a year, which involved staying on four of their farms – in...
19th March 2019
So the Sky: Valerie Lynch, Dempsey & Windle
Valerie Lynch, who is aged 90, was born in Hertfordshire, but spent many childhood holidays visiting Dorset relatives. Although she has been writing poetry all her life and has had poems published in ...
19th March 2019
Alice in Winterland: Julie Egdell, Smokestack
My favourite version of Lewis Carroll’s best known work, the psychedelic fairytale ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ is not the slightly saccharine (but still endlessly strange) Disney version, nor t...
14th March 2019
Messages Written on Envelope Backs: Ayelet McKenzie, Dempsey & Windle
Ayelet McKenzie has lived in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, for 32 years. She has published two pamphlet collections, and two previous full collections, The Patient is Disappointing and Courting the Asyl...
9th March 2019
Sense Me: Annum Salman, AuthorHouse
A well-informed article recently published by the Guardian discussed poetry’s wind of change over the last few years, and mentioned young poets such as Rupi Kaur, whose bestselling works can be found ...
1st March 2019
Husbands for Breakfast: Trisha Broomfield, Dempsey & Windle
Trisha Broomfield was born in Lincolnshire, grew up in Australia and now lives in Surrey. As well as poetry, she’s a writer of short stories and unfinished crime novels. Husbands for Breakfast is her...
21st February 2019
Anatomy of a Whale: Matt Barnard, Onslaught Press
Matt Barnard’s Anatomy of a Whale is disarmingly accessible and at times startlingly original. He explores the underside of the ordinary and aspects of the familiar that are best seen by looking sidel...
16th February 2019
The Weather in Normal: Carrie Etter, Seren
Carrie Etter is one of the few writers who, when I hear she has a new book coming out, I get all excited about because I know it’s not going to disappoint. Her last book, Imagined Sons, was a series o...
12th February 2019
This Phantom Breath: Henry Normal, Flapjack
The cover of Henry Normal’s collection The Department of Lost Wishes features a youthful poet in a garish jacket and a huge badge that asks “Are we having fun yet?”. The answer from me is a resounding...
12th February 2019
Blackbird, Bye Bye: Moniza Alvi, Bloodaxe
Moniza Alvi was born in Pakistan and grew up in Hertfordshire. After working for many years as a secondary school teacher in London, she is now a freelance writer and tutor, and lives in Wymondham, No...
3rd February 2019
The Best of a Bad Situation: Jamie Thrasivoulou, Silhouette Press
In performance Jamie Thrasivoulou has a sten gun delivery. It is the rhythmical bang, bang, bang of the best of ranters’ performance poetry, laying audiences to waste with a voice that is described as...
27th January 2019
Elastic Man: Paul McGrane, Indigo Dreams
Paul McGrane’s debut collection is an enjoyable glimpse into the mind of a man whose tastes, formed in the last decades of the 20th century, will chime with those of many readers today. His title ackn...
20th January 2019
Where the road runs out: Gaia Holmes, Comma Press
Gaia Holmes is a Halifax-based poet and creative writing tutor who has previously made a living as a busker, a cleaner, a gallery attendant, an oral historian, and a lollipop lady. The first section o...
17th January 2019
Five Views of Mount Fuji: Myra Schneider, Fisherrrow Press
Myra Schneider was born in 1936, and grew up in Scotland, London, and Sussex. She has published a number of poetry collections, writes essays and reviews for literary magazines, and has co-edited anth...
15th January 2019
Tutti Frutti: Konstandinos Mahoney, SPM
A skilled observer, Konstandinos Mahoney communicates his enthusiasm for life and language in every poem of Tutti Frutti, his honest, warm and perceptive first collection, which was second prize winne...
6th January 2019
The Wear and Tear of Conversation: Charlotte Harker, Dempsey & Windle
Charlotte Harker’s The Wear and Tear of Conversation is an ironic and humorous account of the interactions between the self and its surroundings. The transgender poet and artist deals with depression ...
5th January 2019
