The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

Book Reviews

painting of a verdant hillside with a peacock in the foreground in front of some purple flowers

That first bright garden

Annie Fisher reviews Rain Tree by Ruth Sharman (Templar, 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)
Black shapes on a bright pink/purple background. On the shapes the word amino is written in vertical fragments "AM" "N" "IO" "N"

Dealing in shards

Steven Lovatt reviews Amnion by Stephanie Sy-Quia (Granta, 2021)
A woman's chest, her hands are beginning to unbutton her white top.

Luve’s arcane delirium

Richie McCaffery reviews The Mouth of Eulalie by Annie Brechin (Blue Diode, 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)
Could be a woodcut, a black and white graphic of o woman's face, her chin is rising in her hand.

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 white butterfly caught in a spiders web, the image is monochrome

A gorgeous fluorescent yes

Hilary Menos reviews Ephemeron by Fiona Benson (Cape, 2022)
Shocking pink background with a drawing of two demons stabbing a bearded figure the bearded figure is lying on the ground and has a halo

A dark shape from the sun

Rob A. Mackenzie reviews Dead Souls by Sam Riviere (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2021)
A clump of light green moss on a black background

Mosses and dunlins, lichens and curlew, light and water

Carl Tomlinson reviews what is near by Kay Syrad (Cinnamon, 2021)
Four people dressed in sparkly festival gear, one with a blue suit covered in white clouds.They are screaming with joy and waving neon coloured glow sticks. Party on!

I could have been betterer. Et-fucking-cetera

Hilary Menos reviews Miracle Theatre’s Everyman, adapted by Carol Ann Duffy, at the Princess Pavillion, Falmouth
Two book covers, both have faces on, both looking roughly towards the centre of the image. The left hand image has an head drawn with lots of wavy green lines on a black background, the right hand shows a woman's head mostly hidden by a cloud, we can see her lips and chin and one shoulder.

Poems of witness

Emma Simon reviews The Underlook by Helen Seymour (Smith|Doorstop, 2021) and The Thoughts by Sarah Barnsley (Smith|Doorstop, 2021)
A pastel hued watercolour of two older people in a squashy bed/ A woman on the left and a man on the right. They are wearing pyjamas and appear to be sleeping in a loose embrace

He turns to her, she turns to him

Annie Fisher reviews Pearls: the complete Mr and Mrs Philpott poems by Helena Nelson (HappenStance, 2022)