Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

THESE ARE ALSO WINGS, edited by Paul Brown, TGA Publications,
          176 Peckham Rye, London SE22 9QA. 50p.

UNDERSEAS POSSESSIONS by Hans-Jürgen Heise, The Oleander Press, 
          20 Parkfield Crescent, Harrow, HA2 6JZ. London.

WALK DOWN A WELSH WIND by Tony Curtis, Phoenix Pamphlet Poets 
          No 18, 8 Cavendish Road, Heaton Mersey, Stockport, SK4 3DN.
          Lancashire. 20p

MILLSTONE GRIT by David Tipton, Second Aeon Publications,
         3 Maplewood Court, Maplewood Avenue, Cardiff, CF4 2NB.

STARS by Brian Wake, Driftwood Publications, 48 Middlesex Road, Bootle,
          L20 98W, Lancs.

THESE ARE ALSO WINGS is an excellent collection of dadaist and surrealist material; much of which is hard to obtain in translation elsewhere. The translations themselves have a power which is unimpaired by the transfer from one language to another, which is a comment both on the quality of translation and on the meagreness of the changes that have taken place in our thinking since the first appearance of dada during the First World War.

     Great strides have taken place in the scientific world during the same period which have had seemingly very little effect on artistic thinking. That these pieces of writing. coupled with a disappointingly small selection of Ernst’s collages, still have the ability to startle, while landing on the moon is accepted as entirely within the given order of events, is a clear illustration of this.

     I found the contents of this booklet captivating and I would, in fact, have eagerly read more. For 50p, however, it should have been possible to produce a much smarter layout and presentation. Simple staple binding just will not do for a booklet of this size; and the organisation of the pages both individually and taken together leaves much to be desired. It’s such a pity to spoil an otherwise imaginative and, in many ways, exemplary booklet for want of a little effort.

     Hans-Jürgen Heise’s poems are all short, none longer than a couple of dozen lines: they never over-reach themselves. Contained within their short space are several levels of thought which stay on the surface of the mind long after wordier effusions have sunk.

     At the back of the booklet is a most interesting statement by the poet ir which he makes quite clear that he is aware of the pitfalls that await any poet these days. His poems in this collection show that there is much more to poetry than the Sort of gossip one is very often subjected to. This book is very well worth reading for the statement alone. It should be necessary text for all those who aspire to write poetry.

     I am always suspicious of personal statements by the artist about the artist and I am profoundly suspicious of Tony Curtis’ introduction to WALK DOWN A WELSH WIND. It is full of self-inflatory remarks which are really irrelevant to the content of the poems. Most of these are rather unsatisfying, often consisting of a good idea which has been ineptly fashioned.

     The best of the group is ‘Pictures in a School Hall’, which captures the latent nostalgia hidden in all the others and lays it before the reader with a kind of naive relish. Although many of these poems are not quite satisfying they are undoubtedly full of ideas and the book is worth reading because of that. Without the introduction I might have been disposed to think more kindly of the poems.

     David Tipton’s long, involved and self-abasing poem comprises, in one neat package, all the mistakes it is possible to make when writing poetry. Much of the poem is involved with a series of views of what, I presume, is his own wife’s death, which the back cover informs us took place in 1970. The poem rambles over various events in an autobiographical way.

     With this type of poetry there is a terrible danger of being mordantly sentimental and, because of Mr. Tipton’s obvious involvement in his subject matter, he seems to have been unable to contain his emotions sufficiently to see clearly what he wanted to say.

     Material which would have made a competent short story has here been distorted to form a very weak poem in which the only poet-y is visual in that some lines are shorter than others and the piece is divided into stanzas.

     Brian Wake’s poems are very straightforward and are, when placed next to each other, seen to be remarkably similar. If you like one, you’ll like them all. I was neither impressed nor disgusted by their very slightly impersonal tone in talking about personal matters, but I wished that they had not been printed on pink paper.

     P.S. There are twenty-nine poems, which are all interchangeable.