The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

The Frip

Black and white photograph showing a poet sitting outside at a tiny table with a typewriter. There is a handwritten sign saying "Poet for hire, pay what you like".

26 things you only know if you’re a poet

by Tim Relf
Section of a book cover. It's mostly black, with silver grey lines that could be woodcuts. It shows in roughly square boxes, a tree, a tower, a bridge, some leaves and a curly vertical squiggle. Nope, I don't know either.

An outstretched imitation of the original

Jeremy Wikeley reviews bandit country by James Conor Patterson (Picador, 2022)
A black and white photograph of a woman's face; she is smiling.

This barter of enthusiasm 4

Mat Riches, Jane Routh and Alan Buckley choose favourite funny-serious poems by Matthew Sweeney, Michael McCarthy and Kathryn Maris
Poetry books on a bookshelf, at least forty of them. I am not going to list them all here, but many appear in the article.

What’s on Maria Taylor’s bookshelf?

British Cypriot poet and reviewer Maria Taylor tells us which books have been important to her in her life and in her poetry
A section taken from the front cover, parts of the words "The" and "Arctic3 can be seen. Th cover is brown with cream text. What can you do?

Hanging onto Tam Lin in The Arctic

Helena Nelson reviews The Arctic by Don Paterson (Faber, 2022)
This is a dark book cover (could have guessed really, "Mouth of Shadows" and all that). The image looks like the inside of a cave (think "Lord of the Rings") a light comes from above and throws a circular glow on the floor.

Murderous parrots eat souls

Richie McCaffery reviews Mouth of Shadows by Tim Murphy (SurVision Books, 2022)
Natalie Shaw, wearing glasses and standing in front of a green wall with a framed painting on it.

Down in the soily waters

Natalie Shaw gives us a close reading of the poem 'Maybe; maybe not' by Denise Riley
Portion of a book cover. It has a dark red background with parts of the words The and Red shown.

Schist and quartz and sparks of mica

Hilary Menos reviews The Red House by Sharon Black (Drunk Muse Press, 2022)
Portion of a book cover showing an abstract image (I know , another one, but this one is quite good). The background is horizontal thick blue and red wavy lines. On top of this are some flat yellow graphics representing wooden signposts.

Haunted, haunting, cursed and cursing

Bruno Cooke reviews Farewell Tour by Stefan Mohamed (Verve, 2022)
Painting showing a woman sitting at a table with a red and white check tablecloth, she is drinking coffee and a small brown dachshund has its paws on the table next to her.

Pierre Bonnard and the art of writing poetry

Rowan Bell on impressionist Pierre Bonnard and the art of writing poetry
An abstract image (yes, yet another poetry book cover featuring an abstract image ... sigh) showing what looks like various shades of light to mid blue water clolour paint daubed in a swirly pattern on a light blue background.

Let the morbid fancy roam

Rory Waterman reviews Donald Davie, Selected Poems, ed. Sinéad Morrissey (Carcanet, 2022)
Some part words in yellow font on a green background. Basically, the cover of this book is yellow text on a green background, so to make it look just a little bit more interesting for the front page I have zoomed right in and cropped the image. Voilà.

Something beginning with earth

Maggie Mackay reviews Desperate Fishwives by Lindsay Macgregor (Molecular Press, Geneva, 2022)