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

ISLAND CITY (Broad Street Poetry, 38 Lonsdale Rd, Oxford OX2 7EW £6.00) - Oxford isn't Bradford, but this is a worthy attempt to emulate the Redbeck Anthology Spirit of Bradford.

PHILIP WELLS - The Breath Between - Vernon Harcourt Press, 65 Mattock Lane, London W13 9LJ. £7.99. Strongly recommended.

EAMER OKEEFFE - War Chronicle - Cicatrix, BM/Cicatrix London WC1N 3XX £3.75 + 35p p&p.

IAN ROBINSON & RAY SEAFORD - Thunder on the Dew - Oasis, 12 Stevenage Road, London SW6 6ES, £5.00.

2 from U.S.

C. MULROONEY - Come on with the rain - Phony Lid Publications, PO Box 2153, Rosemead, California 91770 USA, - $1.

EDWARD MYCUE - Night Boats - Minotaur Editions, 4025 Midvale Avenue, Oakland, California - $10.00.

From Ragged Raven Press, Snitterfield, Warwickshire, Smile the weird joy, (anthology) £6.00.

From Redbeck Press, 24 Aireville Rd, Frizinghall, Bradford BD9  4HH -
ALAN PEAT - Electric Obituary - £3.95
KYM MARTINDALE - Jujubes and Aspirins - £3.95
PAM THOMPSON - Parting the Ghosts of Salt - £3.95
JIM GREENHALF - Following the Seine - £5.95
ALAN WHITAKER - Snow in June - £6.95
JOHN FREEMAN - Landscape with Portraits - £6.95
&, hot off the press, the much-awaited, much-needed Redbeck Anthology of British South Asian Poetry, £9.95 & a must! (Several contributors, inc. editor Debjani Chatterjee, have appeared in issues of FIRE).

Some recommended fiction & prose

JIM BURNS' Beats, Bohcmians & Intellectuals (ed. John Freeman, Trent Books, £7.99) is both informative and a joy to read.

BILL BROADY (a contributor to FIRE no.9) has a novel Swimmer (Flamingo, £9.99) somewhat like an extended prose-poem - captivating.

Another captivating novel is JULIA LEIGH's The Hunter (Faber £9.99).

On a similar theme (wilderness & the threats to it) but from a more innocent angle, is a short novel by another Australian (and one of my favourites) TIM WINTON with Blueback (Picador).

Finally, if you only read one prose book this year, it must be ANDREA ASHWORTH’s Once in a house on fire (Picador, £6.99). This autobiographical account of a childhood of poverty, neglect and violence in inner-city Manchester in the late 70s and 80s, manages to be both surprisingly funny and amazingly uplifting.