The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

Jane Routh

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 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)
Two books with mostly white covers. one cover has a blackened rib, the other a small picture of a blue open door

Essential poetry from Wayleave Press

Richie McCaffery reviews two Wayleave Press pamphlets — Rib by Sharon Black and After by Jane Routh
The February Museum: recent acquisitions

The February Museum: recent acquisitions

by Jane Routh — Fraxinus excelsior 18” square-cut deadwood log / with egg galleries of Hylesinus varius // Retrieved from the log pile, a long block / inscribed with life cycles: