Category Archives: books

Elisabeth Horan’s latest collection Just to the Right of the Stove opens by the fridge, a cold beginning perhaps to counter the heated conversations that will unfold from our two protagonists, one already doomed and the other trying to decide. The first poem is voiced by both Sylvia Plath and our own Elisabeth, wondering ifContinue reading “Elisabeth Horan- Just to the Right of the Stove”

Under Photon Crowns, Selected Writings of Dai Fry is the first individual chapbook collection published by Black Bough Poetry and is an incredible kaleidoscope of journeys, bright black waves of twisting movements that take us far beyond the glories of ‘Majorelle skies’ and down deep into the ‘wild-green waters’ to ‘the breath of the Kracken’Continue reading “Under Photon Crowns, Selected Writings of Dai Fry”

Forever After, Between the Pages of Poetry CollectionsA Series of Interviews with poets on how their collections came together & what followed after. When my debut poetry pamphlet was published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press in September 2020 there were two things I started to reflect on; the journey it had taken me to getContinue reading “Thomas McColl – Forever After, Between the Pages”

Two weeks ago, I sat in the armchair by the window, a wet Wednesday afternoon and opened Serge Neptune’s debut poetry collection These Queer Merboys published by Broken Sleep Books and an hour later had finished the last page, one of the few books I’ve sat and devoured in just one sitting. As I divedContinue reading “These Queer Merboys; Serge Neptune”

‘And when I taste the taste of you, it is the layered shell sprinkled-tang of all recorded time.’ The quote above is the last line of the 1st poem in Jane Dougherty’s debut collection, a collection that opens straight away into the sea’s water and the air’s rain falling onto the earth with its roughContinue reading “Thicker than Water; Jane Dougherty”

This collection brought me back to jazz nights at Le Duc des Lombards in Paris in the late 90s with its strained light, stifling smoke and those journeys the sounds took me on; joyous, jerking, juvenile, gyrating, discombobulating, dysphoric, destructive, devouring, divine, the mind always running after that next note, never quite able to identifyContinue reading “The Gull and the Bell Tower – Kari Flickinger”

Anne Walsh Donnelly opens her chapbook The Woman with an Owl Tattoo, published by Fly on the Wall Press, with the no-holes barred, blaring, bold Guide to Becoming a Writer, a poem that documents a life in change, in search, in turmoil, in the depths of despair, indivisible from the pen. And we instantly knowContinue reading “The Woman With An Owl Tattoo – Anne Walsh Donnelly”

‘Begin with fearlessness…’ from the poem How to Begin Mamiaith by Ness Owen There is a deep sense of loss in the opening poem to Ness Owen’s Mamiaith (Welsh for Mother Tongue) but it is delicately laid down with a hope for rebirth; a memory planted within the roots so we can look out theContinue reading “Mamiaith by Ness Owen”

In the new chapbook Quicksand, by Julie Stevens, published by Hybriddreich, there is a line in the opening poem that reads ‘I’m a factory working hard to produce a mystery, a collection of broken parts awaiting an answer…’ and this is indeed a collection of broken parts but it delivers its message clearly and itsContinue reading “Quicksand – Julie Stevens”

I can remember, creeping down the stairs, after midnight, my parents sleeping, my heart trying to break out of my ribcage, turning on the tv as the sound of my breath rose beyond control, turning down the volume and clicking on to Channel 4 to watch Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane as nerves stuck like knives inContinue reading “Spectrum of Flight – David Hanlon”

Katie Proctor is only 17 and yet already understands her position within the universe and how precarious that is and how it changes, how sometimes you sleep next to the stars and other times you’re left alone hoping that very star is whispering your name on her tongue, in another time and place- ‘you, withContinue reading “SEASONS – KATIE PROCTOR”

My debut poetry pamphlet collection is called Eat the Storms and was published on the 17th September 2020 by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. In 2019, while still living in Paris, I was one of three winners of the White Label Debut Poetry Pamphlet Collection and this collection is that winning dream come to life. ‘IContinue reading “Eat the Storms- Damien B. Donnelly”