The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

Emma Simon

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 poster-style graphic that shows four sheep heads each on a different coloured background. It's like Andy Warhol's Marilyn paintings, but with sheep.

SHEEP SHEEP SHEEP SHEEP FOX SHEEP SHEEP SHEEP

Emma Simon reviews What the sheep taught me by Mary Mulholland (Live Canon, 2022)
Part of a painting which shows a foot on a tightrope.

Ready to catch light

Emma Simon reviews the small manoeuvres by Kathy Pimlott (Verve, 2022)
Images from the three pamphlet covers, mostly grayscale. Three are some photographed high rise buildings, a close up of a black leather jacket and a drawing of what looks like a figure in a maze

Three Live Canon winners

Emma Simon reviews pamphlets by Aileen La Tourette, Elena Croitoru and Mehmet Izbudak, winners of the Live Canon Pamphlet Competition 2021
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 thumbs up and a two fingers salute in front of a poetry submission letter

We have never seen worse

Emma Simon asks poets about good rejections, bad rejections, and rejections that leave you hanging on forever
Three book covers. One with six colourful graphics including a bear and a blow up flamingo, one pink sparkle with a chrome compact mirror and one green with black and dark green text

Three pamphlets: Richie McCaffery, Phoebe Stuckes and Julia Bird

Mat Riches reviews Coping Stones by Richie McCaffery, Emma Simon reviews The One Girl Gremlin by Phoebe Stuckes and Hilary Menos reviews is, thinks Pearl by Julia Bird
Black and white image showing agricultural machinery on a large field with a dark brooding sky, the image has been rotated 90 degrees.

Hearts pressed with aspic

Emma Simon reviews Field Requiem by Sheri Benning (Carcanet, 2021)
The Friday Poem 'Part of me can't hear the moon calling any more' by Emma Simon

Part of me can’t hear the moon calling anymore

by Emma Simon — Isn’t it always the same, within a crisis / another smaller crisis following its own orbit. / For years now I’ve been singing to her tunes / listening to the pluck
Part of the front cover of 'Little Piece of Harm' by Chris Jones showing a wet puddle ion a pavement n the dark, in an urban setting

A man was shot not far from where we live

Emma Simon reviews Little Piece of Harm by Chris Jones (Longbarrow, 2020)