Category: Poetry Reviews

A review of The Music of Eternity by Ketaki Datta

The overarching theme of time, timelessness, the connection between the past, present, and future binds the poems, even as the poet covers a range of ideas and emotions, displaying a unique vision. Datta ponders over the human condition, drawing on everyday happenings to soar into philosophical and sometimes mystical musings.

A review of Chimera by Brad Buchanan

Chimera takes us through an account of multiple procedures and setbacks, presented alternately as invasions, imprisonments, and more bluntly, as betrayal by bodily function. His tone is uncomfortably straightforward, as though he is candidly refusing the reader’s sympathy even as he lays out the visceral details:

A review of Anamnesis By Denise O’Hagan

Anamnesis opens a door into what it means to be human. O’Hagan ponders subjects of perennial relevance in fresh literary ways, always with a convincing naturalness, whether the language is sophisticated or everyday. Even a box of useless items takes on a profound poetic rhythm in O’Hagan’s skilful hands.  

A review of Ore Choir: The Lava on Iceland by Katy Didden

Didden’s poetry is thick, like the hot, oozing lava that permeates the land – the “postvolcanic landscape.”  We are further drawn in by the history, the tributaries of ancient Icelandic poetry, “its craters of dove-gray ashes matted with snow, / attracts artists who siege eddas in the rills.”  These powerful lines draw out the significance of Icelandic poetry in our time.

A review of Earshot by Sam Morley

Sam Morley is a brilliant storyteller, the stories in the poems are written in a language that is dynamic and stylistic as well as entertaining. The work evokes emotions, coupled with strong tension, but not in a heavy way.

Love of Language: an Affirmation: A Review of Tina Cane’s Year of the Murder Hornet

The title poem is a road map to the rest of the collection, both in content and in form.  The poem begins with a “cloud of pollen” that chases the ‘I’ and encompasses a myriad of recent occurrences:  being “overpowered” by magnolia petals, which the reader might consider positive, but which overwhelms the ‘I’; the “murder hornet” itself, that threatens on a literal level but also represents the consequences of human behavior, such as the increasing frequency of viruses like the coronavirus, weather and climate change, and the horrors in the daily news.  

A review of The Night Divers by Melanie McCabe

As you move through the poetry in this collection, it may seem as if the writer is resolved to experience her pain in its most primordial form, without barrier, defense, or comfort. Such sentiments break the surface in “Martyr”: “I permit myself neither opiate nor anodyne. I poke my finger straight into the socket—press my tongue hard to the ice-slick chain link.” The atonement of a survivor is operative here, but there is more.

A review of V8 by PS Cottier and Sandra Renew

A book about cars, motorbikes, etc? How strange I said to myself and wondered what poems about vehicles would look like.  With what enthusiasm would I be reviewing it if I have no attachment or love for any form of transport? I knew that both poets were excellent writers and award winners so that gave me hope. Anxiously, I opened the book and started to read…and was mesmerised from the first few poems.

A review of Witches, Woman and Words by Beatriz Copello

Throughout this collection the poet argues strongly for the rights of women while foregrounding their innate strengths.  She reflects on the way the social order, including the church has conspired to oppress the feminine but also finds solace in the natural world, which is seen as women’s true habitat where ‘Mother Earth embraces each and every one’.

A review of The Air in the Air Behind It by Brandon Rushton

In Rushton’s book, the theme of liminality sits squarely on the interface between the betwixt and between borders of human states and – for that reason – allows the reader to address some of the critical issues of our times, where the fluidity of identity is considered. In the decisive awareness to explore the possibilities that can emerge out of a willingness to stay with ambiguity, the author creates the opportunity to address some of these issues.