My review of Jonathan Davidson's A Commonplace appears on Wild Court 'A sense of place abounds in Jonathan Davidson’s A Commonplace (Smith-Doorstep, 2020), and while that might seem natural from the title, the ‘place’ here derives from a translation of the Latin term ‘locus communis’ or ‘a general or common topic’. Commonplace books were collections of sayings, … Continue reading A Commonplace by Jonathan Davidson
Tag: Poetry
Restless Voices by Alan Price
My review of Restless Voices by Alan Price appeared in issue 66 of The Journal. Reading Alan Price's recent book, which includes a sequence of poems using the cut-up method, I was struck by how this form of work offers an almost an inverted experience, in that it is more interesting and rewarding to write than it … Continue reading Restless Voices by Alan Price
The Interrupted Sky by David Lawrence
My review of The Interrupted Sky by David Lawrence appeared in issue 66 of The Journal. For seasoned watchers of American competitive reality shows—think tattoos, drag queens, fashion design, glass blowing— a phrase pops up with grinding inevitability. Usually uttered by some under-pressure competitor in the process of exiting events, no sooner are the following words uttered, and you … Continue reading The Interrupted Sky by David Lawrence
Bloom
My review of Sarah Westcott's new book, Bloom, has been published on Wild Court. 'The poems in this luminous book, Bloom (Pavilion Press, 2021) are tight, fragmented things, varying in shape and typesetting, in a style both abstract and committed: the world placed firmly underfoot even as the work revels in strangeness and uncertainty. The first poem, … Continue reading Bloom
Flatirons
Caught By The River published another of my poems in March, a little homage to the Flatiron mountains in Colorado. 'We headed for mountainsafter dark, a drunk planhatched in his apartment,scrawled like graffitialong the strip mallscarparks and empty lots, the sullen edges of the city.I’m not sure I ever walkedso far during those days,my idea of … Continue reading Flatirons
Verges
Here's a link to a recent poem published on Caught By The River, a little celebration of roadside verges and all they've meant to me over the years. 'Here I learned to thrivefull as cow parsley, ripeas roadkill bursting sweetlyin teeming hedgerows. These were the places I first alighted into the world,on trips to the crossroadsand beyond, the … Continue reading Verges
Tagging The Maze
I've been hugely busy of late with family and work, and the spare moments have seen me working on a new novel. All of this means that I've fallen behind with many things, and that includes posting things on this blog. Here's a recent piece: a personal essay on a poetry collection by Robert Selby, … Continue reading Tagging The Maze
Map of a Plantation
My review of Jenny Mitchell's recent collection Map of a Plantation has now been published on Wild Court. The title of Jenny Mitchell’s follow-up collection to 2019’s Her Lost Language begins with a gesture to objectivity. Map of a Plantation (Indigo Dreams, 2021) – we’re offered a sense of distance, a dispassionate realm of depiction, the chart not the … Continue reading Map of a Plantation
Cry of the Poor
I'm really pleased to have a poem in the anthology The Cry of the Poor, edited by Fran Lock and published by Culture Matters. 'The Weather In Priory Park' is one of my lockdown poems, about an encounter with a man in my local park. 'Something about a dogsecures you to a place. How else could … Continue reading Cry of the Poor
I Never Think Dark Will Come by Susan Jordan
My review of I Never Think Dark Will Come originally appeared in issue 63 of The Journal.Things abound in the first book by Susan Jordan, which takes as its focus the corporeal and tangible. 'Let us praise little things, the use we make of them,' Jordan declares in 'Laudemus' (the Latin for 'let us praise) … Continue reading I Never Think Dark Will Come by Susan Jordan
Absence Club 