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

Available from the author at 15 Brampton Road, St Albans, Herts AL1 4PP, £6.00.

If you are one of the many readers who has enjoyed this poet's work in Doors and South (and other magazines and volumes) over many years, The Scarlet Fish will appeal to you. Written simply, elegantly, with economy and without fuss, the poems describe accurately, with vivid images, people she has encountered, places she has visited, events she has witnessed and remembered.

Schooldays, whether as pupil or teacher, give rise to a number of fascinating poems: "Mr Fudge", "Miss Chase" and "Reunion"
are good examples. But I especially liked "Joyce", about the brilliant Head Girl, who falls from grace:

"I'd never have thought it/ Of Joyce," the
gym teacher said./ "She let herself Down,"
her colleague agreed./ With legs tightly
crossed round gymnasium rope/ I skidded
to earth."

One thing that strikes me about this volume is how little of it does not come from looking at the vivid world around the poet, and how relatively few poems reveal inner feelings or give glimpses of the conflicts which affect so many of us. This will be a big plus to many readers; but not to those admirers who might say, "With this skill, climb back up the rope!"

But childhood itself seems to release deep feelings. Watching children at play evokes two moving poems. One is "Walberswick,
Children Paddling, 1894", based on a Wilson Steer painting: "I love the scarlet fish/ My new dress makes.// It swims in the sea/ Like a flurry of blood."

The other is an intriguing poem, "The Avon at Fordingbridge", where the children come "striding through arches, burnished by sun,/ Like saints into icons,..", and in which she admits to "trying to contain/ Soft spasms of loss." My plea is that she does not.