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

Wising Up, Dressing Down by Edward Mackinnon
ISBN 1 899549 66 8 £6-95

This poet uses satire and invective to good effect; the poems are largely feisty, sassy and resonant, although some are ‘weightier’ than others. Edward Mackinnon often uses end rhyme, which occasionally clunks, but overall I enjoyed the energy and wit of these poems. Some real gems here, refreshingly clever without being smart-arse; in ‘Confessional Poem’, he asks ‘What if you confessed in a poem to having commited a crime?’ and goes on to speculate: ‘...a policeman raps on your door. The sound is measured/impartial, a fateful sound. His face is fashioned from granite....’

Shoestring Press, 19 Devonshire Avenue, Beeston, Nottingham NG9 1BS

Touching Down in Utopia by Hubert Moore ISBN 1 899549 68 4 £6-95

Compassionate, assured poems, the imagery making fresh and surprising connections. Hubert Moore deals with the dispossessed, the forgotten; his poems are quietly compelling, infused with a gentle, self-deprecating humour. I felt throughout that each poem was greater than the sum of its parts, deserving several visits. In ‘A sprig for Myra in hospital’ he writes ‘While you were quietly re-arranging your mind,/we must have been photographing Tafaed’s smile/against sky and blood-red poinsettias in the hotel yard’ Many of these poems are, quite simply, beautiful. Hubert Moore deserves a wide readership; buy this book for anyone who’s ever suffered loss (that’s everyone, isn’t it?!)

Shoestring Press

Time’s Doppelganger by Patricia Bishop ISBN 0 9515 513 7 X

A real enjoyment of language is evident in these poems; Patricia Bishop is a skilled and sharp observer of tiny detail which lifts the subject matter. She’s particularly adept at evoking a specific, unrepeatable moment. Her description is sensuous yet spare; these are chiselled, finely honed poems with a very strong sense of place, particularly so with the Cornish poems. In ‘Fishing Quotas’ she observes ‘Mid-morning, the Swordfish full, locals/supping their slow pints. Marcus Tonkin/fingers the orange nylon nets looking for tears.’ Highly recommended.

Overstep Books, Froude Road, Salcombe, South Devon TQ8 8LH

Bonobos by Chris Preddle ISBN 1 903914 04 3 £5-99

A really engaging collection; Chris Preddle has a freshness of vision that renders the commonplace extraordinary, amusing, new. His imagery is precise and visual (he talks of the ‘ironed reservoir’ in a poem about ducks) and his range goes well beyond the anecdotal; a Sappho scholar, he lacks pretension and opens up a new world for his readers. The title poem, ‘Bonobos’ is particularly resonant: ‘The Holme Moss television transmitter mast/balanced en pointe in a skirt/of guy ropes, oversees this valley/our tutelary/big-top of tent pole on the top of the moor.’

Biscuit Publishing Ltd., P.O. Box 123, Washington, Newcastle upon Tyne

People from Bones by Bron Bateman and Kelly Pilgrim
ISBN 0 9542397 0 9 £6-50

It’s a risky business, bringing out a joint collection; often the reader much prefers one poet’s work to the other, but I think in the case of these two very interesting Australian poets, a joint venture succeeds. Bron Bateman writes extensively, and intensively, on the body, particularly ‘the ways in which marginalized bodies are inscripted and read.’ It’s a difficult area, because it seems such a familiar theme in contemporary poetry, but she does it, in most cases, with clear-eyed honesty, compassion and a refreshing lack of sentiment. I particularly liked ‘The Colour Purple’ - ‘I have learnt to listen/for your silence;/the hiss of breath/that comes before blood;/the hot crack of ribs. Your punish with such grace/I close my eyes/and see Angels.’ Kelly Pilgrim’s range is wider, more eclectic, and at her best her imagery is stunning; her writing is energetic, witty, sensuous. ‘On dark blue sheets/you are spread out like a starfish/you never notice me slide sideways/pouring my body out of bed’

Ragged Raven Press. 1 Lodge Farm, Snitterfield, Warwickshire, CV37 0LR

Blues for Bird by Martin Gray
ISBN 1891661 20 5 $16-95 U.S./$25-95 Canada

An ambitious and unusual undertaking - a biography of Charlie Parker written entirely in trimeter. It zips along at quite a pace, which works well with the subject matter. Everything you wanted to know about Charlie Parker - if you wanted to know about Charlie Parker. This would make a great present for Charlie Parker fans, whether they’re into poetry or not.

Santa Monica Press LLC, P.O. Box 1076, Santa Monica, CA 90406-1076 www.santamonicapress.com

Swimming in the Deep Diamond Mine by Chris Hardy. Illustrations by Martha Hardy. ISBN 1 903746 12 4 £5-00

Great title, and some really interesting stuff here, a mix of the surreal and dream-like, and the grittily down-to-earth. I enjoyed this poet’s range, his ability to switch from grim night-clubs to Jarman’s garden. ‘I heard how his retina splintered,/He told me,/That friendly, civilized voice/Like smoke/Fading in the kitchen. ‘He deals with the stuff of everyday experience; there’s nothing self-consciously poetic about the way he deals with his subject matter, and it’s all the stronger for that.

Hub Editions, Longholm East Bank, Wingland, Sutton Bridge, Spalding, Lincolnshire PE12 9YS

Scarecrow Crimes by John Lindley ISBN 0 903610 30 2 £4-50

A lively and entertaining collection in two parts, the first eclectic in range, the second, The Elmer McCurdy poems, dealing with the extraordinary after-life of Elmer McCurdy’s body (read it, it’s worth it). These are confident, vibrant, often quirky poems, confident in their use of extended metaphor; ‘She wanted Atlas/He became one;/made his tired vertebrae a metal loop/so that when he held her/he could fold around her/in a card backed arc. ‘The second section is wonderful, gothic in its subject matter, bleakly humorous, but shot through with compassion and a certain empathy. This collection will appeal to lovers of narrative poetry, who are bored with endless anecdote.

New Hope International, 20 Werneth Avenue, Gee Cross, Hyde, Cheshire SK14 5NL.

Touching on Love by David Clarke ISBN 0 904179 67 2 £6-95

As the title suggests, poems about love, largely between couples and families; gentle, delicate, but with some welcome harder edged imagery, as in ‘Burning off Paint’ - ‘At an awkward corner the blue roar/stopped, when the canister leaked/and caught fire.’ These are well-crafted poems, and David Clarke no doubt has many fans, but I found the concentration on the same subject a bit much towards the end.

Hippopotamus Press, 22 Whitewell Road, Frome, Somerset

Craeft by Graham Holderness ISBN 1 899549 67 6 £7-50

Verse translations from Anglo-Saxon, including Beowulf. Intense, detail-laden poetry, lovingly translated by someone who admits ‘Translation is impossible.’ For those of us not exposed to Old English, reading a collection like this may seem daunting, even irrelevant, but I found myself struck buy the richness and intensity of the language, the musicality of the text. It’s a stiff journey, but one that’s well worth undertaking. In ‘Beowulfs Funeral’, translated from Beowulf ‘They gathered the gear then, those Geats in their grieving/To pile up a pyre, high-up and heavenward,/Hanging with helmets . . .’

Shoestring Press

The Great Friend by Peter Robinson ISBN 0 9539477 4 £8-00

More translations, this time of the work of twentieth century Italian and other poets. Always difficult to assess translated poetry, if you haven’t read the original, but I was delighted by some of the poems; in ‘On the Creva Road again’ from Vittorio Sereni, ‘An old woman scarlet with laughter./The birds sang from the waterways/and how many still green leaves intact/autumn bore in her womb. ‘A good snapshot of the work of some fine writers, translated, it seemed to me, with sensitivity and respect.

Worple Press, 12 Havelock Road, Tonbridge Kent TN9 1JE

Circular Walk Through the Heritage Landscape of Blaenafon by Daphne Rock ISBN 0 9539815 1 7 £4-95

A real sense of this part of South Wales is evoked in this short collection; ‘Underground the magic minerals await/resurrection. Or metamorphosis. ‘This is a poet who uses landscape like a character in her work, with passionate engagement.

Corundum Press, 105 Elborough Street, Southfields SW1 8 5DS

Stranger in the House by Brendan Cleary ISBN 1 903110 06 8 £5-95

Brendan Cleary is a poet whose work blisters the surface of life, and lives, to reveal humour, sadness, bleakness, all with such enviable brevity you wonder how he does it. His world encompasses bedsits, bars, barn-dances, strip-clubs and the occasional suburban dinner-party; ‘After the cheesecake led upstairs/in our blindfolds, squeezing hands,/to the blue room with the mattress.’

Panoramic Lounge-Bar by John Stammers ISBN 0 330 48076 6 £6-99

A rich collection of technically and emotionally accomplished poems, wide-ranging in subject matter and written with real confidence and assurance. John Stammers combines humour and poignancy in this work; his observations are never less than razor-sharp, and his spare, confident use of language beguiles and convinces. In ‘The Clinic’, ‘Vivid teenage girls with awkward boys/jig about and giggle; the little radio bleats./Everything is poster bright:/Free Condoms, Folic Acid/You are wearing black as usual;/your black hair, your pale skin.’

Picador, 25 Eccleston Place, London SW1W 9NF

Forgeries by James Turner ISBN 0 953359 14 X £6-00

James Turner’s first collection consistently impresses with its subtlety, warmth and humour. His quirky perspectives contrive somehow to make the normal seem strange, inappropriate, unfathomable even: ‘History is a fascist state ruled by an amnesiac’ (‘History Is’).

original plus, Flat 3, 18 Oxford Grove, Ilftacombe, Devon EX34 9HQ

The Nothing We Sink or Swim In by Charles Hadfield ISBN 0 9541 376 04

I’d say that Charles Hadfield’s poetry is something of an acquired taste, but one that’s worth acquiring for readers who like their poems more mysterious and ineffable than most. Hadfield writes of distant places and quiet moments that are both part of the known universe and somehow detached from it.

Oversteps, Froude Road, Salcombe, South Devon TQ8 8LH

From The Blue by James Cole ISBN 0 9521376 2 0 £5-95

Clumsy syntax and eccentric punctuation do the poems in this collection few favours, but they are written with integrity and the best of them suggest the author’s next collection will comprise a stronger body of work.

Oversteps Books

Facing Demons by Ann Alexander ISBN 1 871471 21 4 £7-95

Ann Alexander won the Frogmore Poetry Prize in 2000 and this, her first collection, demonstrates admirable range and consistency through poetry that is always accessible, never trite.

Peterloo Poets, The Old Chapel, Sand Lane, Calstock, Cornwall PL18 9QX

No-one Listening by W. H. Petty ISBN 1 902529 12 X £3-99

Petty is one of those poets who, just when you think you’ve got their number, pull the rug from under your feet. At times bafflingly elliptical, at his best he is V relentlessly inventive and beguiling.

Community of Poets and Artists Press, Thyme Cottage, Bogshole Lane, Whitstable CT5 3AT