The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

Book Reviews

A wooden sculpture hung on an old blue wooden plank door. The brown, roughly heart shaped and has a light blue circle in the centre crossed with what look like laces.

Holiday in Barlovia

Matthew Paul reviews A Land Between Borders by Mike Barlow (Templar Poetry, 2023)
Three large fishhooks dangling on what looks like hemp rope, a small green (jade?) fish swims between them.

My oddly capable body

Isabelle Thompson reviews The Department of Work and Pensions Assesses a Jade Fish by Nuala Watt (Blue Diode, 2024)
Curved off-white lines in a slightly art deco style, or maybe resembling pipes in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory surround the word Contra-flow in a block capital decorative font. All of this is on a dark brown background.

The little Englands of my grief

Hilary Menos reviews Contraflow: Lines of Englishness 1922–2022, selected by John Greening & Kevin Gardner (Renard, 2023)
Abstract black lines on a grey background. Some go up in a diagonal way describing, I dunno, possibly an upside down ice cream cone. Some curve upwards like branches of an abstract tree. Kinda jazzy man.

Flashes of brightwork

Victoria Moul reviews Something, I Forget by Angela Leighton (Carcanet, 2023)
Coloured drawing showing the mind map process. There is a small picture of a woman's head in the centre and lines of text on various colours running all over the page a little like the branches of a tree.

Everything so insistently next to everything else

Helena Nelson mind-maps Absence by Ali Lewis (Cheerio, 2024)
Photograph of a long shed-like house on iron stilts.

All the bridges are down

Carl Tomlinson reviews Between A Drowning Man by Martyn Crucefix (Salt, 2023)
Part of a slightly abstract painting showing (I think) a mirror (or window), a blue door, and some red vertical lines that could be curtains ... or a draped scarf ... or something.

This ritual of witness and professionalism

D.A. Prince reviews The Sessions by Jonathan Totman (Pindrop Press, 2023)
Letters from the book title arranged vertically in three columns on a grey-green background. The letters are coloured in patterns go green and white that seem to suggest leaves, or trees. Yeah, I dunno either.

The man will carry this void

Rory Waterman reviews Missing Person by Nicholas Hogg (Broken Sleep Books, 2023)
A waterfall on a foggy mountainside. It's high, and the middle of ... well, you get it.

We have an opportunity to listen 

Maggie Mackay reviews High Nowhere by Jean Atkin (Indigo Dreams, 2023)
A black and white beetle seen from above on white textured paper.

The dull click-clink of gold against formica

Isabelle Thompson reviews I Think We’re Alone Now by Abigail Parry (Bloodaxe Books, 2023)
Illustration of a 1950's style woman getting ready to stab a python with a dagger. I know right! Pretty racey for poetry (It's even got a yellow background!). I'll take it over an abstract thought doodle though.

Are Poetry Reviews Pointless?

Helena Nelson plays with Shapeshifting for Beginners by Emma Simon (Salt, 2023)
A blue background with some gold solid circles and some gold circle outlines. They look a little like planets.

Across the empty field

Victoria Moul reviews The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse edited by Kaveh Akbar (Penguin, 2023)