Light Makes It Easy: Rosie Jackson, Indigo Dreams
The 2020-21 global pandemic and lockdown in particular form the background to this pamphlet collection of topical poems by teacher and prize-winning poet Rosie Jackson.
Jackson’s poem ‘Because These Days Are Dark’ is a good place to begin because this poem, for me, epitomised the philosophy, mood and tone of the whole collection: a kind of calm stoicism and acceptance of the situation coupled w...
21st December 2021
Be Feared: Jane Burn, Nine Arches Press
The poems featured in Be Feared trace a challenging and at times fearful journey towards self-awareness and liberation. The poet is the hero, or better the heroine, of this journey that is a relentless revisitation of her past traumas in an attempt to build a fairer future. Compelling imagery overfl...
15th December 2021
Unearthed: Ruth Taaffe, Dempsey & Windle
Ruth Taaffe, who is from Manchester, has taught in the UK and in international schools for over 25 years. She holds a Masters degree in creative writing from Lancaster University and her poems about h...
10th December 2021
The Bicycles of Ice and Salt: Jean Atkin, Indigo Dreams
This pamphlet of poems concerns two long bicycle journeys in Europe, one with a female companion, and a later one with a male, undertaken in the 1980s. Jean Atkin has said about the journeys in a blog...
7th December 2021
Nocturnes: David Olsen, Dempsey & Windle
David Olsen is the American author of four full-length poetry collections published in UK and four poetry chapbooks from the US. He is also a playwright, a writer of short fiction, and former freelanc...
7th December 2021
Wagtails, puppets, pogroms: Roma women poets find their voices
“Oke Romano ceriklo! Dikasa kalen! Behold a wagtail, and you shall see Gypsies!” These are the final words of editor Jo Clement’s preface to Wagtail, the Roma Women’s poetry anthology, that was launch...
23rd November 2021
Fireworks and fiery words at Spoaken Word in Lewes
It’s hard to beat Janine Booth as an experienced organiser and MC. The Marxist, trade unionist and socialist-feminist has been around as a poet since the 1980s, when she was one of the ranters who bra...
22nd November 2021
Never mind the rugby, the planes, or even the literature festival: grassroots voices put Richmond upon Thames on the poetry map
To be fair, the rugby fans didn’t turn a hair when they encountered a group of poets beside the river Thames in Richmond while they were heading from the pub to nearby Twickenham. On the other hand, t...
21st November 2021
'If I fell I would fall in state-shaped flakes. One for every place my body lingered'
Sometimes 'dream poems' give an account of the strange revelations of our subconscious, and sometimes, like here, the 'dream poem' is the poem of wishes and hope, expressing a fantasy of a certain lon...
19th November 2021
All the Men I Never Married: Kim Moore, Seren
This remarkable and very readable book about “a gallery of exes and significant others” first emerged from academia. In an interview earlier this year Kim Moore explained that the poems in her second ...
16th November 2021
Bloody Amazing: ed. by Gill Lambert, Rebecca Bilkau, Dragon Yaffle
This is a comprehensive, really ‘amazing’ anthology of poems about periods, examining in depth all aspects of menstruation and its effect on the female body and mind. It is a woman’s world from which ...
14th November 2021
Red Letter Openings, 40th anniversary anthology, Open University Poets
This is special all right; 40 years and still going with a wide range of styles. You can tell it has been put together by clever Open University students because it can be roughly split using the prin...
9th November 2021
Snow like Silk around my Soul: Liv Johannesson
Sincerity and openness characterise Liv Johannesson’s first collection. She first published her work on Instagram and was supported by her followers and also by the Greenwich Writers’ Group. Friends a...
6th November 2021
Call and Response: collated by Amanda Bonnick, Black Pear Press
This attractive pamphlet of 23 poems by 17 poets has been collated by Amanda Bonnick, Worcester Cathedral’s first poet-in-residence, following a call for submissions from local poets to send in poems ...
2nd November 2021
Forged: Tina Cole, Yaffle
I’ll be honest. My heart sank when I first glanced at this pamphlet. It appeared to be another elegy for the Black Country and its industrial past, and it just feels as if I have read a few of these.
...30th October 2021
Performance Rites: Barry Smith, Waterloo Press
Barry Smith has a soft spot for the 1960s. ‘Beatific’, inspired by ‘The Beatles 1962’ by Sir Peter Blake, is bursting with colour, as was the later part of the decade. It is the small details that thi...
24th October 2021
Pressed Flowers: eds. Charley Barnes, Polly Stretton, Black Pear Press
Oshibana, or the art of pressing flowers in such a way as to make a whole picture, dates back to the 16th century, according to Japan Today. When exchanges between Japan and Europe increased in the ea...
19th October 2021
Driftwood by Starlight: Caroline Gill, Seventh Quarry Press
Prize-winning poet Caroline Gill, who currently lives in Suffolk, grew up in London, Kent and Norfolk. After graduating in classical studies at Newcastle University, she went on to teach Classical Civ...
15th October 2021
Paul Muldoon provides the poetry magic as festival returns to 'trousers-on' audiences
Abruptly, without any fanfare, Paul Muldoon began his reading at Winchester poetry festival by fishing out his mobile phone and reading John Keats’ poem ‘To Autumn’. Afterwards he said merely that his...
9th October 2021
Growing Places: Polly Stretton, Black Pear Press
Chair of the OU Poetry Society, poet, coach and mentor Polly Stretton is the author of three previous full-length poetry collections, Girl’s Got Rhythm (2012), Chatterton (2014) and The Alchemy of ’42...
8th October 2021
The poetry of Coventry: things that Larkin forgot to mention
The opening verse from a poem by Philip Larkin is inscribed on a plaque at Coventry station. The poem, ‘I Remember, I Remember’, concludes in typically downbeat Larkin fashion: “ ‘Nothing, like someth...
27th September 2021
The Oscillations: Kate Fox, Nine Arches Press
The award-winning poet Kate Fox challengingly engages the reader in the peculiarity of being someone who is a ‘neurodivergent thinker’ in the difficult times of the pandemic. The collection is divided...
27th September 2021
Constructions [Konstrukce]: Joshua Calladine-Jones, tall-lighthouse
This impressive debut pamphlet by Joshua Calladine-Jones features three sections that question the very roots of how we use language and proposes different ways of communication. This might entail mak...
18th September 2021
Marples Must Go!: Greg Freeman, Dempsey & Windle
Marples Must Go! was the slogan which protesters spray-painted on a motorway bridge near Luton, with reference to the controversial Minister of Transport Ernie Marples, who oversaw the closure of a hu...
10th September 2021
100 Poems to Save the Earth, eds. Zoë Brigley and Kristian Evans, Seren
The timing for the launch of this anthology could not have been better given the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the COP26 UN climate change conference to be held in G...
7th September 2021
Cures: Jo Brandon, Valley Press
Jo Brandon has worked as a domestic for the Royal Household, and as a tour guide, as well as an administrator for the Poetry Society and the Poetry School. She is now a freelance poetry editor, libret...
2nd September 2021
Lyonesse: Penelope Shuttle, Bloodaxe
I was drawn to this poetry collection by its title, and by its location. In her preface, Cornwall-based poet Penelope Shuttle mentions that Thomas Hardy always referred to Cornwall as ‘Lyonesse’. The ...
28th August 2021
In The Sticks: eds. Simon Fletcher, Cherry Doyle, Offa's Press
This anthology of hard-hitting rural poetry from Shropshire-based Offa’s Press began as a series of online regional workshops - and made me wonder where the term “in the sticks” originally comes from....
27th August 2021
Auscultation: Ilse Peder, Seren
Born in Derby and raised in Birmingham, Ilse Pedler now lives in Kendal where she runs her own veterinary practice offering holistic treatment for animals in Cumbria and the north-west of England.
...
21st August 2021
Panopticon: Brian Comber, Black Pear Press
The title of Worcestershire poet Brian Comber’s debut collection made me reach for the dictionary. Historically, a panopticon was a circular prison with cells arranged around a central tower from whic...
18th August 2021
Speaking in Tongues: Laura Taylor, Flapjack Press
Perhaps the most important poem in Laura Taylor’s third collection is not the title poem but ‘Origin’, which precedes it in the book. This poem employs remarkable, un-everyday words such as “prephonat...
7th August 2021
In An Ideal World I'd Not Be Murdered, Chaucer Cameron, Against The Grain Press
The epigraph says it all: To my dearest Helen & [ ]. This magnificent book, part memoir and part fiction of the author’s experiences in the sex industry, exists to give voice to those m...
30th July 2021
The Earth is a Bookcase: Beth O'Brien, Black Pear Press
Writer, editor and reviewer Beth O’Brien is the author of two previous collections of poetry: Light Perception (2019) and I Left the Room Burning (2021), both published by Wild Pressed Books. Her late...
28th July 2021
Pig's Ear, Dog's Dinner: Paul Cookson, Flapjack
As a reviewer, your heart inevitably sinks when you read a sub-title, ‘A Covid-19 Poetry Diary, Vol 3’. It seems only yesterday that I was leafing through a book by Paul Cookson, which I now know to b...
19th July 2021
Yay!: Robert Garnham, Burning Eye
An acclaimed performer of comedy poetry, Robert Garnham reads his poems at fringes and festivals. His work is double-edged, humorous and entertaining but also profoundly connected to the human conditi...
16th July 2021
If You Want Thunder: Ruth Valentine, Smokestack
Ruth Valentine is a writer of poetry, novels, short stories and non-fiction. A number of her previous poetry collections – Downpour, On the Saltmarsh, and The Tide Table – suggest an interest in water...
14th July 2021
How to Wear a Skin: Louisa Adjoa Parker, Indigo Dreams
A poignant exploration of identity, loss and the potential of love evolves in the enthralling poems of Louisa Adjoa Parker. Her English and Ghanaian origins merge in a displacing yet enriching cultura...
23rd June 2021
When Women Fly: Sarah Pritchard, Hidden Voice
This is a brave collection that revisits the seven stages of women’s lives from the angles of displacement and personal trauma and from an LGBT perspective. The titles of the seven sections give an id...
16th June 2021
50 Ways to Score a Goal and other football poems: Brian Bilston, Macmillan
It’s all a question of timing if you want to succeed in sending the ball past the custodian – and in poetry, too. Here’s the ever-popular Brian Bilston in his football kit and with a newly-published c...
15th June 2021
The best of Attila the Stockbroker, with knobs on!
I have no truck with folk who deem poetry about terrible events ‘tragedy porn’. I’ve long held the opinion that poets are cultural historians, and that it is almost our duty to document tragic or unju...
3rd June 2021
Reading Between the Lines: Neil Leadbeater, Littoral Press
The poetry of place and a love and detailed knowledge of nature go hand in hand in the work of Neil Leadbeater, who in his latest collection Reading Between the Lines delights in excursions down count...
23rd May 2021
Rescue From The Dark: Paul Francis, Fair Acre Press
Paul Francis is a retired teacher who has published three previous main poetry collections; he has also won three national poetry competitions, and been placed second or third in three others, includi...
12th May 2021
This Kilt of Many Colours: David Bleiman, Dempsey & Windle
Different languages and diverse cultural heritages shape this multi-voiced collection. David Bleiman weaves his multilingual identity, embracing English, Scots, Scots-Yiddish, Spanish and Yiddish lang...
7th May 2021
Magnolia: Nina Mingya Powles, Nine Arches Press
Nina Mingya Powles is a prize-winning poet and zinemaker from Aotearoa in New Zealand, who is currently living in London. She is the author of several poetry pamphlet collections and the founding edit...
30th April 2021
Map of a Plantation: Jenny Mitchell, Indigo Dreams
The cover illustration of Jenny Mitchell’s second collection, Map of a Plantation, is of a beautiful woman of dignified bearing, and is a detail from ‘Golden earring’ by Gregg Kreutz. It seems outrage...
25th April 2021
When listening isn't enough: Rodney Wood, Independent Publishing Network
Rodney Wood’s second pamphlet is an original and powerful sequence of 21 poems about a challenging time the author experienced, his own difficulties interweaving with stories told by ‘Steve’, whom he ...
23rd April 2021
Cov Kids: Antony Owen, Knives Forks and Spoons Press
Antony Owen is best known in the poetry world and beyond for his passionate work about war and peace. It’s interesting to see him take a diversion from his usual subject matter in this collection abou...
18th April 2021
When Peter Sellars Came to Tea: Trisha Broomfield, Dempsey & Windle
Trisha Broomfield’s short collection is drenched in memories in which characters from her childhood and adulthood vividly portray her life experiences in a humorous yet compelling way. She engages the...
17th April 2021
Letters Home: Jennifer Wong, Nine Arches Press
Translator, poet and critic Jennifer Wong was born and grew up in Hong Kong. She studied English at Oxford and received an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. She is the recipient...
31st March 2021
Anxious Corporals: Alan Morrison, Smokestack
Alan Morrison is a left-leaning, much-published poet and editor who can produce wonderful, ringing phrases of denunciation: “O what hope for red roses / To grow among the thorns of red-top-hypnotised,...
27th March 2021
'A testimony to the power of poetry': Write Out Loud's Beyond the Storm anthology reviewed
As we mark a year since the start of the first Covid lockdown, Write Out Loud would like to share a heartening review of our Beyond the Storm competition anthology that has been published in the quart...
25th March 2021
Inhale/Exile: Abeer Ameer, Seren
Abeer Ameer is of Iraqi heritage, was born in Sunderland and grew up in Wales. She trained as a dentist in London and completed an MSc, developing an interest in the treatment of anxious patients and ...
22nd March 2021
The Feel-Good Movie of the Year: Luke Wright, Penned in the Margins
It feels authentic when Luke Wright writes about the state of England; he understands the kind of people that voted for Brexit. They are the same people who believe in Essex lions; he knows them, and ...
21st March 2021
Yield: Claire Dyer, Two Rivers Press
This collection is about a mother’s journey as her child transitions from son to daughter; as the poet moves from seeing a “honeycomb heart shatter, fall”, to anticipating going clothes shopping toget...
10th March 2021
Jumping into a Waterfall: Anna Percy, Flapjack
Manchester-based Anna Percy is a firework of a poet. But I am left pondering what sort of firework – not a rocket, not a Roman candle, more a Catherine wheel, swirly, sparky and deceptively dangerous.
...8th March 2021
Alexa, what is there to know about love?: Brian Bilston, Picador
How has a poet with a pseudonym, whose work mostly rhymes and includes a large slice of humour, amassed so many followers – more than 80,000 at the latest count – on Twitter? The answer may indeed lie...
5th March 2021
Alexa, what is there to know about love?: Brian Bilston, Picador
How has a poet with a pseudonym, whose work mostly rhymes and includes a large slice of humour, amassed so many followers – more than 80,000 at the latest count – on Twitter? The answer may indeed lie...
2nd March 2021
The Alchemy of 42: Polly Stretton, Black Pear Press
Polly Stretton is chair of the Open University Poetry Society, one of the Croome Poets linked with a National Trust mansion and park in Worcestershire, and has worked with children in schools. Her fir...
1st March 2021
Open Windows, Open Doors: Vanessa Vie, New Departures
This debut collection of poetry and visual art by Vanessa Vie opens with an epigraph by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from which it takes its title, and a foreword by Michael Horovitz, veteran Beat poet and ...
24th February 2021
Pick Your Own: Amanda Bonnick, Black Pear Press
Worcestershire-based actor, director, producer and poet Amanda Bonnick holds a BA degree in philosophy and sociology from the University of Warwick. As a theatre practitioner, she has produced a numbe...
22nd February 2021
Alice and the North: Anne Caldwell, Valley Press
I’m no expert on the mysteries of prose poetry - but then, who is? Maybe Anne Caldwell, for one, for she edited a recent prose poetry anthology with Oz Hardwick that was published by Valley Press. .
...16th February 2021
What Survives Is the Singing: Shanta Acharya, Indigo Dreams
In her long career as a scholar and writer, Shanta Acharya has published poetry, literary criticism and fiction as well as business and finance works. Her seventh collection explores the vulnerability...
15th February 2021
Poems from Cardiff: edited by Amy Wack, Seren
Poems from Cardiff forms a part of Seren’s attractively produced pamphlet series celebrating the spirit of places in Wales. The other pamphlets in the series are titled Poems from Pembrokeshire; Poems...
9th February 2021
Passerine: Kirsten Luckins, Bad Betty Press
There’s no shortage of bold and innovative poetry coming from the UK right now, but you won’t read another collection like this one any time soon. Passerine is delicately defiant, powerfully intricate...
8th February 2021
The Call of the Clerihew: ed. George Szirtes and Andy Jackson, Smokestack
A clerihew is defined on the cover of this anthology of 800 examples of them as “a childish anti-panagyric, a flat-footed, Hidibranistic, eponymous quatrain designed to cut everyone down to size”, and...
3rd February 2021
Riverwise: Jack Smylie Wild, Parthian
Born in Aberystwyth but mostly raised on the edge of Dartmoor, poet, nature writer and award-winning baker Jack Smylie Wild has been moving between England and Wales for the last 30 years. In 2011 he ...
2nd February 2021
'Write Out Loud was life-changing for me': Tony Walsh on how he became a poet
Leading performance poet Tony Walsh paid a heartfelt tribute to Write Out Loud at our fundraising Facebook event on Thursday night. Tony, who touched a global nerve with his poem ‘This is the Place’ a...
30th January 2021
The Beauty Within Shadow: Henry Normal, Flapjack
I am going to admit that during lockdown I have found it very hard to read anything of any substance. Newspapers, magazines, periodicals, online dross were all tolerable, but for the first five month...
26th January 2021
The 'man in the cardigan' was gently ribbed by Ian McMillan. But does he have a point?
Over the last few years, I have got out of the habit of attending the TS Eliot Prize readings at the Royal Festival Hall at London’s Southbank Centre. My growing involvement with local, grassroots poe...
26th January 2021
How to Make Curry Goat: Louise McStravick, Fly on the Wall Press
Louise McStravick describes herself as “a writer, a teacher and proud Brummie”. She is also a slam-winning poet and performer, and has said in an interview: “I started out doing spoken word due to the...
26th January 2021
A Sense of Tiptoe: Karen Hayes, Holland Park Press
Karen Hayes spent the earlier part of her working life as an actor and musician and later artistic director of the Bristol-based theatre collective Public Parts. From theatre she moved towards lyric a...
18th January 2021
Forest moor or less: Dawn Bauling and Ronnie Goodyer, Indigo Dreams
Exercise to preserve physical and mental health has become even more important during the pandemic. And walking is still a relatively easy way – and currently permitted, within certain boundaries – t...
11th January 2021
Poems from the Borders: ed. by Amy Wack, Seren
Poems from the Borders forms a part of Seren’s attractively produced pamphlet series celebrating the spirit of place in Wales. The other pamphlets in the series are titled Poems from Cardiff; Poems fr...
4th January 2021
Belongings: David Constantine, Bloodaxe
A map on the cover of a poetry collection is always a promising sign to me. And that promise is fulfilled in Belongings by David Constantine, recent recipient of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Jus...
1st January 2021
