The Frip

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)

Photo of Kathy Pimlott. She has short grey hair, glasses and is holding a glass of wine. She is wearing ablue polo necked jumper and a necklace of orange wooden beads. Photo by Matthew Paul.

Castaway Companions

Castaway Kathy Pimlott choses poems by Roger McGough, John Keats and Mimi Khalvati for her desert island stay

Photo by Matthew Paul

Partial book cover photograph showing a city at night from above. Traffic and lights can be seen, and a flyover. Black, grey and red are the main colours.

A change in the momentum of the world

Victoria Moul reviews The Thirteenth Angel by Philip Gross (Bloodaxe, 2022)

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)

Black and white photo of Chris Hamilton-Emery. He is outside with sea in the background and is wearing a newsboy hat, tinted glasses and a neckerchief.

We have to find the right authors and the right commercial strategy to recover. It may take us five years

The Frip talks to Chris Hamilton-Emery, poet and director of Salt Publishing

What looks like a Japanese wood cut showing four warriors in black and white.

In the Light of Rocket Flares

Maryann Corbett reviews 'One Hundred Visions of War', a translation by Alfred Nicol of 'Cent Visions de Guerre' by Julien Vocance (Wiseblood Books, 2022)

Textured image in charcoal and grey. It's probably tea.

Language walking across borders

D.A. Prince reviews Colours & Tea (Human) by Tomi Adegbayibi (Muscaliet Press, 2022)