The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

The Frip

The word Orlam in black script on a parchment background. The "O" is enormous and is surrounded by small line drawings of birds and insects in red. White lines like trees are in the background, and a black line-drawn lamb hangs in the centre.

Your death opens gates to the dark world

Bruno Cooke reviews Orlam by PJ Harvey (Picador, 2022)
Johnathon Davidson reading into a microphone. He is wearing a grey suit jacket and a blue shirt and he has short grey hair

Progress was made

Poet and literature activist Jonathan Davidson considers the concept of 'progress' in poetry
Mid blue background with the word Water in black sans serif text

Seawort, marram grass, a length of rusted metal chain

Khadija Rouf reviews Notes on Water by Amanda Dalton (Smith|Doorstop, 2022)
A photograph of Dannie Abse in a comfortable-looking study or sitting room.He is wearing a tweed jacket and a denim shirt, his hair is white and he is laughing. Photo credit Amit Lennon.

Ticking its own wild time

Tony Curtis on 'In the Theatre' by Dannie Abse, a poem which changed his life as a writer


Photo credit and copyright Amit Lennon
A a detail from Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’. It's a night scene showing fires and silhouettes of houses. At the bottom right light shines through an archway.

An empty room

Charlotte Gann reviews Towards a General Theory of Love by Clare Shaw (Bloodaxe, 2022)
A predominantly black and white old photograph of an oldish woman standing if front of a stone house, arms akimbo. She is dressed in black and wearing a black bonnet-like hat. Her apron is in colour and embroidered with large primitive flower shapes.

Ce n’est pas une métaphore

Hilary Menos reviews Our Lady of Tyres / Notre dame des pneus by Claire Trévien, translated from English to French by Marie Lando (Broken Sleep Books, 2022)
An image taken from the book cover, Its shows a bit the the name Emily in yellow text and the first six letters of the word "unexhausted" in blue text. The background is shocking pink

Strung like an archer’s bow

Steven Lovatt reviews Unexhausted Time by Emily Berry (Faber, 2022)
Photo of Suzannah Evans, she has shoulder length brown hair, glasses and a light blue shirt with pictures of birds on.

Castaway Companions

Castaway Poet Suzannah Evans chooses poems by Ian McMillan, Marie Howe and Tony Hoagland to take to a desert island
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)
black and white picture of Wendy, she has short hair and a striped Breton style top. She has books behind .

Inside Spelt

The Friday Poem talks to Wendy Pratt, founder and editor of Spelt Magazine, about running a literary magazine with a nature focus, elitist gatekeepers, and the importance of planning
Slightly blurred mostly blue picture of a white lighthouse on the end of a pier.

Life and love

Matthew Paul reviews Lanyard by Peter Samson (Carcanet, 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