I’ll Know I’ve Made It When Going to a LongHorn Steakhouse on a Sunday Evening in the Dead of Winter Doesn’t Depress the Hell Out of Me
by Christine Naprava — There’s tremendous hurt / in knowing / that in this booth / I will never be complete.
Archive
Glass through heat
Jane Routh reviews Panic Response by John McCullough (Penned in the Margins, 2022)
What are the islands to me
Castaway poet Anne Rouse chooses poems about beauty, truth and hope, and promises not to brood too much on the island
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: Gillingham, Payne and 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
One kid looking on in wonder
Matthew Stewart explores Ben Wilkinson’s poetic development and looks at his new collection, Same Difference (Seren, 2022)
What the owl said to me
by Annie Fisher — I blink, therefore I am. / The moon and stars despise your crude chronology. / The skylark’s ecstasy is the sparrowhawk’s breakfast. // If you're scared of the dark, don't sleep in the forest.
A dark shape from the sun
Rob A. Mackenzie reviews Dead Souls by Sam Riviere (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2021)
Ups and Downs
In Conversation: Lorna Dowell talks about her first teachers at school, setting up Poetic Licence, and how creative expression is key to general well-being and mental health
Mosses and dunlins, lichens and curlew, light and water
Carl Tomlinson reviews what is near by Kay Syrad (Cinnamon Press, 2021)
About the Building
by Paul Stephenson — The entry says it’s homely in style, / double-fronted and two-storied / with gable dormer windows in the roof. / It refers to brick quoins and brick surrounds, / two large chimneys, one either side
The hail clanjamfrie’s singin
Regina Weinert writes in memory of William Bonar (1953-2021)
Photo by Kim Ayres