That first bright garden
Annie Fisher reviews Rain Tree by Ruth Sharman (Templar, 2022)
Archive
The poet has to have the last word
We talk to Sharon Black, editor of Pindrop Press, about the impact of Brexit, living and writing in two languages, and what’s new with Pindrop
What do our regular reviewers say?
This month, to celebrate a year of voicing opinion, we asked our reviewers to tell us a bit about how, when and why they came to write / review poetry, and what they do when they just can’t get on with writing a Friday Poem review
Dealing in shards
Steven Lovatt reviews Amnion by Stephanie Sy-Quia (Granta, 2021)
Glass through heat
Jane Routh reviews Panic Response by John McCullough (Penned in the Margins, 2022)
Castaway Companions
Castaway poet Anne Rouse chooses poems by H.D. and Yeats, and Helen Waddell's translation of 'Die Christi Veritas', to take to a desert island
Eventually
by Michael Laskey — yes, she gave up conversation. / She’d lift her chin and finger / her neck, feeling for the stoma — / her trial and almost always error — / to seal it tightly enough to speak // intelligibly in that growling / voice which sounded like
A flower blossoming out of the hole in my face
Khadija Rouf reviews Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire (Chatto & Windus with Flipped Eye, 2022)
A gorgeous fluorescent yes
Hilary Menos reviews Ephemeron by Fiona Benson (Cape, 2022)
Folio
by Sharon Black — Hard to tell if these are my words / on wood pulp pressed to paper / or the tree’s own testimony. // Take this fallen leaf. Our veins are / indistinguishable. They snake and crisscross / under
Three pamphlets: Erica Gillingham, Stephen Payne and Khadija Rouf
Rachael Matthews reviews The Human Body is a Hive by Erica Gillingham, Richie McCaffery reviews The Wax Argument by Steven Payne, and Bruno Cooke reviews House Work by Khadija Rouf