We travel the world in this new collection of poems from Jenifer Harley. Surging from the global to the local, from Samoa and Sydney to a Scottish seaside bothy, her keen-eyed observation focuses us afresh on human civilisation’s grandeur, originality and beauty. But she’s also playfully aware of the everyday experience of tiny things that irk like the ouch of wearing flip-flops on a steep dirt track.
These poems are always alert to language – or, rather, languages – e.g. ‘la ragazza sooks spaghetti’ (a line from ‘Bar Gambrinus, Pisa’), capturing the vibrancy of a location’s cheerful, chaotic cacophony and colours.
A vividly perceptive collection, commemorative and celebratory, documenting life’s rough and smooth. A collection with real heart.
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In this superb collection, a pair of Jackdaws build a nest and hatch their young in a ‘gash in one of the window panels’. Fulton unfolds events with deadpan humour, some visceral descriptions, and an unerring eye for concrete detail in this series of short lyrics. He expertly weaves in detail from everyday life, and uncanny observations from the streets of Paisley (‘a sparkly unicorn in a high window’) and beyond (‘a flattened dragonfly/in the centre of a road’) and never once assumes the affection that emerges for ‘Jack and Jill’ is reciprocated. (‘they don’t give a toss/if I’m here or not’). Indeed, Jack’s voice is not one to be messed with. These poems explore the relationship between humankind and nature in an urban environment with wit, craft, profundity, and warmth in an immensely satisfying and positive evocation of nature and new life.
(Andy Breckenridge, poet)
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Linda Devlin’s Clota is a bold rush at the world, like the collection’s namesake: goddess of the River Clyde. A mirrored ball reflecting numerous versions of ourselves and the spaces we occupy, this collection invites the reader to look closer, question ‘laundered thoughts’ and admit the dark truths of damage received or delivered. There is an undeniable fragility but, like the river, currents of strength run deep and fast. Renewal’s All I can do is add my fragment to the whole lingers long after reading. (Morag Anderson, poet)
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Jim Ferguson has ten books of poetry already under his belt and this latest collection is a most welcome addition to his vast repertoire. A particular favourite is Domestic Day, a slow meandering through house-hold chores that Ferguson turns into pleasures, whilst the making of soup becomes a meditation in nourishment, soup wae wine, a Vikings shield against the snowfall.
Songs for Lara is more than just a love story, it’s a story of love found between the lines, or in the secret places where we sometimes fear to venture.
(Donna Campbell, poet)
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5 new poems by the acclaimed poet, Graham Fulton, work by Charlie Gracie, Magi Gibson, Jim Ferguson and many others. A truly engaging anthology.
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