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Ambit 179 has a bleak and wintery feel, appropriately enough perhaps. But I’m drawn to its few splashes of (metaphorical) colour: poems of blood, love and sickness by Julia Casterton, precisely described moments by Elizabeth Bartlett, and glimpses of hope by Carol Satyamurti (It’s a privilege to save a life/some people never do’). And what a treat when you come to the end of this issue – an expanding gateleg illustration by Chris Orr offers a panoramic view of the Thames as a crazy, overstuffed sprawl teeming with a surreal version of urban life. Full of light and life despite being monochrome.
Meanwhile, Acumen 51 seems to anticipate spring with a ‘new voices’ issue, although their focus as ever is on poems rather than poets. I think this is quite right; any poet, new or established, is only as good as their best poem. But if people’s best poems are featured here then I’m a little disappointed to tell the truth, although I did enjoy pieces by Joanna Preston, Judy Gahagan, Knute Skinner, and Selwyn Veater. Luckily the pages of Acumen also offer plenty of healthy, unpretentious debate about poetry, not least in the letters section.
By contrast, Envoi likes to represent poets through a small selection rather than individual poems. The quality control is so excellent that this strategy never seems indulgent: the four sonnets by Brian Daldorph are its biggest successes in issue 139, and there’s also memorable work from Valerie Laws and David Baker. Debate rages here too about the current state of poetry, generally agreed to be pretty parlous, although there is less agreement about whether to blame readers for not reading faithfully enough or writers for not writing well enough. I don’t think Envoi contributors could be accused of the latter, at least. (RP)
Ambit, 17 Priory Gardens, London N6 5QY. Subscription rate: £25 yearly (4 issues)
Acumen, 6 the Mount, Higher Furzeham, Brixham, South Devon TQ5 8QY. Subscription rate: £12.50 yearly (3 issues)
Envoi, 44 Rudyard Road, Biddulph Moor, Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7JN. Subscription rate: £15 yearly (3 issues)
Page(s) 38
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The