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The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

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Jane Routh

has published four poetry collections and a prose book, Falling into Place (about rural north Lancashire) with Smith|Doorstop. Circumnavigation (2002) was shortlisted for the Forward prize for Best First Collection, Teach Yourself Mapmaking (2006) was a Poetry Book Society recommendation and she has won the Cardiff International and the Strokestown International Poetry Competitions. Jane Routh’s latest book is Listening to the Night (2018) and a new pamphlet, After, is available from Wayleave Press (2021).

    Swirling blue. tinted background looks a bit like sand. There is a flat tree shape possibly made of seaweed and some random shells are lying on the aforementioned gray blue swirly sand stuff.

    Grey fank loch

    Jane Routh reviews Okapi by Fiona Moore (Blue Diode Press, 2024)
    Pencil drawing showing a cube on a white background surrounded by a green textured corona.

    Latte-coloured cannonbirds

    Jane Routh reviews No Man’s Land by David Nash (Daedalus Press, 2024)
    The word 'MISSING' in white block capitals superimposed on a photo of the back of a red brick house, two sash windows, overgrown with foliage from the garden.

    Oboes, pine cones, pangolins

    Jane Routh reviews Missing the Man Next Door by Annie Fisher (Mariscat, 2024)
    Dark navy blue background with semi-circular lines in green and blue. They look a bit like the lines you draw around a radio tower or loudspeaker, to indicate vibration or noise.

    A voice from the silence

    Jane Routh reviews The Silence by Gillian Clarke (Carcanet, 2024)
    I think it's wool. Mostly blue but with th occasional red splurge. Oh, and there are some, drops of water that look frozen.

    Alley Sally, Flash Face, Do-No-Day

    Jane Routh reviews Material Properties by Jacob Polley (Picador, 2023)
    Pastel shades, probably watercolour, showing a bedroom interior with an open window and a traditional iron bedstead.

    These moments, rare and marvellous

    Jane Routh reviews The Guest Room by Diana Hendry (Worple Press, 2022)
    What does Jane Routh say?

    What does Jane Routh say?

    I’m a reader of poetry, and, since you can never trust a cover blurb, I’m a reader of reviews too ...
    Three cover images. The first shows some red fruits on branches, the second shows a prism or beaker with blue shapes inside and the third is a turquoise and blue wavy pattern.

    Living between languages

    Jane Routh reviews three new pamphlets from Verve Poetry Press – Nemidoonam by Nasim Rebecca Asl, Bird Cherry by Roshni Gallagher and Tapping at Glass by Tim Tim Cheng
    Composite image made from two book covers showing (on the left) an abstract shoreline with sky and (on the right) an abstract grey background with white squiggles and brown leaflike squiggles. I know, so many abstract images! It seems to be a poetry thing, the abstract image. Sometimes you get a nice picture of a friendly dog, or a cow. But mostly it's an abstract thing.

    More sea than land, more sky than earth

    Jane Routh reviews After Clare by William Thompson (New Walk 2022) and A Separate Appointment by Rebecca Farmer (New Walk, 2022)
    Old copperplate writing on a white background.

    Murders, thefts and debts, quarrels and ‘domestics’

    Jane Routh reviews Testimonies by Hamish Whyte (HappenStance Press, 2022)
    Photograph of a wartime Pillbox bunker on a beach.

    Hunker

    Following on from Steven Lovatt's evisceration of 'heft' and Chris Edgoose's denunciation of 'palimpsest', Jane Routh takes on ‘hunker'

    Photo by Mathias Reding
    A thin black diagonal line running from top right to bottom left separates two blocks of colour, one orange, one white

    Deep fake, rush fade, tilt shift, whip pan, smash cut

    Jane Routh reviews Dream into Play by Richard Skinner (Poetry Salzburg, 2022)
    A black background with a red brush stroke image that looks like a fox. The image is red and is surrounded by white text with the words THE RAKE in block capitals.

    Biscuit, olive branch, small origami frog

    Jane Routh reviews The Rake by Tristran Fane Saunders (New Poets List, The Poetry Business, 2022)
    A yellow graphic of a bee seen from above on a green/blue background

    Seedpearl work

    Jane Routh reviews The Language of Bees by Rae Howells (Parthian, 2022)
    Bright purple background with a light coloured wavy line in a loose arch

    Glass through heat

    Jane Routh reviews Panic Response by John McCullough (Penned in the Margins, 2022)
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    14/09/2022

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