A celebration of Sphinx Reviews (2006-2023)

Sphinx Reviews is a project that has run alongside HappenStance Press since 2006 (see its website here). Founded by Helena Nelson and co-edited for the last six years by Charlotte Gann, it specialises in reviews of poetry pamphlets, a format that has long struggled to receive critical attention, and provides an incredible service to poets, publishers and, of course, readers.

By my tedious manual count, a total of 1461 books have been reviewed on Sphinx, many of them by more than person, the equivalent of over 2,000 pamphlets that were received by Helena Nelson, repackaged and sent back out to her loyal band of reviewers. 2,000 batches of stamps to be paid for. Umpteen treks to the post office. 2,000 reviews that were edited by her (to the huge benefit of the reviewers themselves, whose prose style and critical approach to poetry were often transformed via this process). 2,000 posts that were formatted, uploaded and optimised for search engines.

What’s more, for many poets, the review of their pamphlet on Sphinx was the only critical response they’d ever receive. That’s a hugely generous gift in anyone’s language. Looking back at the archive, there are a fair few poets who have sadly died in the intervening years, though their reviews on Sphinx remain. As a record of pamphlet poetry in the U.K., it’s irreplaceable.

And now, of course, Sphinx is coming to an end. Helena Nelson has given so much to poets over the years via HappenStance Press itself and via Sphinx Reviews, in both cases to the detriment of her own writing, but even this labour of love must inevitably be finite.

Like so many positive presences in our lives, Sphinx has probably come to be taken for granted, as if it were destined to accompany pamphlet publishing forever. It will be sorely missed once poets and publishers bemoan the absence of alternatives. However, its online archive is to be cherished and celebrated. Here’s hoping that in the aftermath of this closure, we at least start to see more of Helena Nelson’s exceptional poetry…!

Keith Hutson's Troupers

My OPOI review of Keith Hutson's pamphlet Troupers (Smith-Doorstep, 2018) is now up at Sphinx. Here's a snippet from its opening lines...

"There’s an argument (often touted by this reviewer) that the most universal texts are rooted in specifics, that they engage and involve us in a specific context to such an extent that we easily transpose their connotations, suggestions and conclusions to a whole host of elsewheres..."

...but you can read it in full here.

OPOI review of Miriam Gordis' Vinyl

My OPOI review of Miriam Gordis' pamphlet Vinyl (Eyewear Publishing, 2018) is now up at Sphinx and you can read it by following this link.

OPOI stands for "One Point Of Interest" and asks the reviewer to respond to a single aspect of the collection in question that especially interests them. It's an excellent concept, yet another Helena Nelson project to help pamphlets gain exposure. To get a fuller flavour of what I mean, why not browse the extensive OPOI archive while you're over at Sphinx?

U.K. poetry pamphlet competitions at Sphinx

If poetry pamphlets are your thing, Sphinx has become a point of reference for the U.K. scene: its website is absolutely jam-packed with reviews and features on chapbooks. Only last week, it published a comprehensive list of U.K. poetry pamphlet competitions (see here), all ready for your shiny new manuscript in 2017...

OPOI

I was delighted to read the other day that Sphinx poetry pamphlet reviews are open for business again (see here). What's more, they're explicitly seeking "OPOI" pieces: i.e. "One Point Of Interest".

This format is especially interesting in the context of short, blog-length reviews. Instead of a whistle-stop, sometimes superficial tour round a collection, the reader finds an in-depth focus on a specific point. Furthermore, true to the Sphinx tradition of juxtaposing different reviews of one pamphlet, the hope is that some chapbooks will attract multiple viewpoints, each picking up on a single aspect, as if engaging in an implicit conversation.

I'll be following developments with interest. For the moment, I'd recommend reading the review by Helena Nelson of Clare Best's remarkable new pamphlet, Cell.

From pamphlet to full collection

There are many pitfalls involved in the transition from a pamphlet to a full collection, haste being prime among them. I discuss these dangers and their implications in an article that's just been published over at Sphinx. You can read it in full here.

Sphinx - a tribute

Over at Sphinx, the latest batch of pamphlet reviews is nearly complete. However, the main page carries the news that these are the last. Bearing in mind the important role that Sphinx has played in the rise of poetry chapbooks over the past few years, this is sad news, although it’s more than understandable. A quick summary of its feats soon tells us just how much time and work it must have taken up for Helena Nelson…

Sphinx started life as a paper-based publication back in 2006, a magazine dedicated to promoting poetry in pamphlet form. From 2010 onwards, it was solely published on the internet. At the beginning, it followed a typical route of one review per book. Nevertheless, its signature format of three pieces per pamphlet was adopted after Issue 10. The figures are huge: a total of 445 chapbooks have been dealt with via 864 reviews, most reviews getting 300-500 hits in the first couple of weeks alone.

I’ve been involved with the project on both sides on the fence. As a poet, I was delighted to receive critical coverage for my books from three different points of view, so Inventing Truth was reviewed by Richie McCaffery, Marcia Menter and Charlotte Gann.

As a reviewer, I really enjoyed the experience of encountering verse that I wouldn’t have read without Sphinx. There was a definite frisson every time a batch of chapbooks arrived.

I certainly learnt a lot: from the “Notes for reviewers” with its list of review clichés to be avoided (e.g. …a new voice…shows promise…deceptively simple…risk-taking…demotic…) to the editing process of each review, where any syntactic messes or semantic wobbles were sorted out. Moreover, the aim was always to strike a positive note: Criticism should be constructive. Please make it apparent this is a personal response, not Judgement Day.

One of my tenets is that a poet should also feel at home in prose, and doing reviews is a key part of that apprenticeship. In my own case, I needed to shake off academic essay writing. Sphinx helped tremendously!

There is at least still the solace that the reviews from Sphinx will remain online as a snapshot of UK poetry pamphlet publishing over the past eight years. What’s more, new features and articles will be added in the future. Already, there are historic interviews with Chris Hamilton-Emery (Salt), Num Stibbe (Sylph Editions) and Leona Carpenter (Mulfran), not to mention Peter Sansom on Twenty-Five Years of the Poetry Business. A new feature by Andrew Sclater on Stewed Rhubarb has also just been posted, so it may be that the demise of the reviews will make time and space for other kinds of writing.

For the moment, why not have a look at the archive? Be warned: you might well find yourself purchasing more chapbooks as a result!

Self-consciously self-conscious

In our recent reviews of Luke Samuel Yates' pamphlet, The pair of scissors that could cut anything, over at Sphinx (see here), both Richie McCaffery and myself coincided in the "self-conscious" nature of Yates' poetry. What's more, I even argued that his verse seems "self-consciously self-conscious".

In other words, Yates is adopting a very specific poetic posture. I'm sure his work is going to play a significant role in the U.K. poetry scene over the coming years, and I'll be intrigued to follow its development.

Degna Stone's Record and Play

My review of Degna Stone's Record and Play is now up over at Sphinx. You can read it here, alongside complementing and contrasting views from Helena Nelson and Ross Kightly. Like always in such cases, reading their pieces makes me reassess my own opinions!

How to end a poem?

Conventional wisdom would have it that practitioners of contemporary verse should end their poems in such a way that their writing opens out beyond the piece itself. In other words, the poem should finish by inviting its reader to take an onward journey.

In this context, we often forget that circular endings, ones that tie up loose ends and bring strands together, ones that satisfy in their neat perfection, are equally valid and can also surprise. They aren't necessarily in any way less ambitious for holding the reader within the poem. However, they are out of fashion.

I was consequently delighted to find that Frank Wood is adept at such endings. My review of his pamphlet, Racing the Stable Clock, is now up here at Sphinx, alongside pieces on the same collection by Gina Wilson and Rob A. Mackenzie. The latter's opinions very much coincide with mine, and we even chose similar quotes to illustrate our points!

Abstract nouns in American poetry

"In spite of the risks involved in broad generalisation, let me start with a premise: while much of UK poetry seems to run scared of big abstract nouns, fearful of being sucked into their black hole of mish-mashed connotations and interpretations, American poetry seems to have long overcome such hang-ups and self-limitation."

The above is the first paragraph of my review of Brad Johnson's The Dichotomy Paradox for Sphinx. You can read the whole piece here, alongside alternative views from Matt Merritt and Helen Evans.

In spite of many possible exceptions, am I right? If so, why?

Terrific reviews for Tasting Notes!

I'm very pleased to report that Sphinx has published a terrific set of reviews for Tasting Notes. Moreover, I'm extremely grateful to Marcia Menter, Ross Kightly and Trevor McCandless for the generosity of their remarks on my pamphlet, as in the following examples:

"...the delights of this small but succulent pamphlet..."

"...All I can say is that the mouth feel of these poems is as exquisite as the wines claim to be..."

"...It is impossible for me not to love this pamphlet..."

"...I can’t resist the voice of grape waiting to be picked..."

"...I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I was..."

"...This book is lovely. Mouth-wateringly so..."

You can read the three reviews in full here. And don't forget you can still get hold of a copy yourself (and maybe even an accompanying bottle of wine) by clicking on the links to the right of this post.

Maurice Rutherford's Flip Side to Philip Larkin

Following Prowein, which was terrific both in terms of wine and poetry (Tasting Notes turned out to be a real success not just with my importers but with the other wineries who had stands nearby!), I got back to find Sphinx Review had posted my piece on Maurice Rutherford's Shoestring Press pamphlet, which is titled Flip Side to Philip Larkin.

It's an intriguing collection, as can be seen by comparing my views with those of the other two reviewers (Peter Daniels and D.A. Prince), and I purchased a copy of Rutherford's New and Selected Poems, And Saturday is Christmas, as a direct consequence of having been sent his chapbook for review. This is one of the joys of writing for Sphinx - I discover excellent poets who might otherwise have slipped under my radar.

Andrew Graves' Citizen Kaned

My review of Andrew Graves' pamphlet, Citizen Kaned (Crystal Clear Creators, 2012), is now up at Sphinx. You can read it here in the now-established format of three juxtaposed pieces about the same chapbook. Page vs performance is an implicit issue throughout. Fresh perspectives are found on an old debate as the reviewers discuss to what extent Graves achieves a balance between the two.

Lizzy Dening's Nasty Little Intro #2

A whole host of freshly baked reviews have just gone live over at Sphinx as part of Issue 20. It includes pieces on chapbooks by poets such as Hannah Lowe, Ira Lightman and Ian McMillan, while also featuring my take on Lizzy Dening's excellent mini-pamphlet, Nasty Little Intro #2, which you can read here.

Sphinx, a new issue and a new website

Sphinx has long been one of the few publications to focus on reviews of poetry pamphlets. Initially printed, it's been web-based for the last few issues under the auspices of the Happenstance Press website.

Issue 19 has just come out, but for the first time it's been launched as part of a new stand-alone website for Sphinx. You can find it here, and it's well worth a browse. There are reviews for many recent pamphlets, all within the established framework of three reviewers for each book, their pieces then juxtaposed and in implicit dialogue with each other. In this issue I tackle Charlotte Gann's intriguing chapbook from Pighog, The Long Woman. Once again, it's a thought-provoking process for me to compare and contrast my views with those of others. 

First reviews for Inventing Truth

The first reviews of a poet's first pamphlet are inevitably significant, so I was intrigued to read three of them all in one go over at the latest issue of Sphinx. Suffice to say, I'm grateful for such generous assessments of the book and am especially delighted to find that my poems have hit the spot with readers, as can be seen in the following extract from Richie McCaffery's piece:

"Inventing truth is a remarkable collection of pithy poems that open up to panoramas of love, family, regret and longing, and linger, flourishing in the mind long after reading."

I can't let a plug like that go begging, so here's a link to the Happenstance shop, where you can purchase a copy of Inventing Truth for yourself.

Sphinx 16

Sphinx 16 is now live at the Happenstance Press website. Specialising in reviews of pamphlet poetry, Sphinx provides us with a real feel for the current state of play for this format in the U.K. publishing world.

The current issue continues with the intriguing idea of giving us three different reviews for each chapbook, and includes pieces by myself on Matt Bryden's Night Porter and Hilary Menos' Wheelbarrow Farm. I'm always keen to have the chance to compare and contrast critical opinions on a book, so Sphinx offers an ideal opportuntiy. I very much recommend a look at the current issue and a trawl through its extensive online archive.

Sphinx 12

Reviews tell us as much about their author as about the books they're assessing, something that's made even clearer than normal by Sphinx and its idiosyncratic format of providing three different reviews for each chapbook.

Snippets from Issue 12 are now up at the Happenstance site (including three reviews by myself), and they're well worth a look. Not only do we get varied perspectives on the books in question, but we also find an implicit dialogue and debate developing between the different reviews and reviewers. There are opinions which coincide, others which clash, others which cast fresh light on each other. Each review has been written in isolation, before all three are brought together for the first time in Sphinx.

This process must involve a huge amount of work for Helena Nelson, but a great deal of pleasure is generated for the reader.