My review of Alan Buckley's Still

My review of Alan Buckley's new collection, Still (Blue Diode Press, 2025), is now up at The Friday Poem. You can read it in full via this link, but here's a snippet to whet your appetite...
The coherent and cogent use of syllabics in English cannot ignore the natural stresses, the iambs and trochees, the anapests and dactyls – all surging and ebbing within a syllabic framework that offers a quieter music just below those stresses...

A game of poetic Chinese whispers

I've reviewed Anna Crowe's translation of Pedro Serrano's The Conjurer for The Friday Poem. Here's the opening paragraph...

The act of translation involves the need to resolve ambiguities or ambivalences that were intentionally left open in the original, just as it forces the loss of connotations that cannot be replaced on a like-for-like basis. For some translators, this process is drenched in frustration, but for others, it’s a creative challenge, the chance to generate a new entity that simultaneously does its utmost to respect the source. And on this occasion, we’re lucky to find that Anna Crowe is the translator of Pedro Serrano’s new collection, The Conjurer (Arc Publications, 2024) as her method firmly falls into the second category. Crowe’s considerable experience in translating the likes of Joan Margarit (from Catalan) and Juan Forcano (from Castilian Spanish), both also published by Arc, is here brought to bear on a selection from Pedro Serrano’s three published collections in Mexican Spanish...

If you'd like to read the review in full, it's available via this link.

The first review

The first review for Whatever You Do, Just Don't is in, and it's terrific! I'm very grateful to Christopher James for his scrupulous, in-depth feature on my collection for The Friday Poem. Here's a brief snippet, but you can read it in full by following this link...

Stewart is consistently sure-footed while navigating rocky emotional landscapes. He shows a craftsman’s touch for form, deft handling of syntax, and an ear for half-heard rhythms and cadence...There's a grace and an empathy at work here that make these poems slip deep into the heart, the mind and the memory...

How, when and why do you write poetry or reviews...?

This is the question that The Friday Poem asked its regular reviewers for today's feature. Here's an extract from my response...

"As for the issue of what displacement activities I indulge in when I should be writing, I’m afraid my personal experience is the opposite: writing poetry is actually my displacement activity when I should be doing all sorts of other things that spell R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y! Which is another reason why I’d never want to turn poetry into my job – doing so would kill my writing overnight..."

You can read my piece in full, plus those by other Friday Poem stalwarts, via this link.

Poems to make you smile and make you think

Over at The Friday Poem, they're running an series of features about poems to make you smile and make you think. And then, of course, to ponder the relationship between poetry and humour.

In today's slot, I look at Maria Taylor's ‘Hypothetical’, which is ace. You can read the poem itself, along with my take on it, via this link.

My review of The Kentish Rebellion at The Friday Poem

Does this sound familiar in the current political climate...?

‘Selby hints at the presence of decline, at the role of that decline in generating rebellion and confrontation, at how leaders attempt to manipulate the masses, and how this issue pervades both the past and the present.’

My review of Robert Selby's The Kentish Rebellion is now up at The Friday Poem and you can read it in full via this link.

Beyond the Bubble on The Friday Poem

I'm pleased to report I have an article on The Friday Poem this week, titled "Beyond the Bubble - how can poetry reach out to a wider readership?". I do hope it encourages positive debate. The first paragraph reads as follows:

Over the twenty-five years that I’ve been following the U.K. poetry scene, I’ve witnessed countless hands being wrung at the side-lining of poetry by society. However, this act has then been followed by most stakeholders (poets, publishers, arts organisations, etc) sitting on those same hands and complaining, as if outsiders’ lack of interest in the genre were their own fault. One analogy might be the disbelief that some feel at so many other people voting for Brexit. In politics as in poetry, nothing will change unless we all take the bull by the horns and engage with society on a regular and permanent basis...

If this extract has piqued your curiosity, you can read the article in full by following this link.

My essay on Michael Laskey's poetry

No ifs, not buts, Michael Laskey is a major poet.

My essay on The Friday Poem today looks at the reasons why his work deserves far greater recognition. You can read it in full by following this link, but here's a small taster to tempt you in...

Sometimes the best poets creep up on us when we least expect them to do so. Sometimes we first skim-read them in disappointment before later encountering them at a moment in our lives when they speak to us like nobody else ever has. Sometimes such poets make an imperceptible, gradual impact on our emotional lives until we suddenly realise they’ll now accompany us for the rest of our days. Michael Laskey is one such poet...

I'm on The Friday Poem!

I'm absolutely delighted to report that my poem, Las Cigüeñas, is The Friday Poem today (you can read it by following this link). Very grateful to the editor, Hilary Menos, for the chance to take part in this exciting new project.

Moreover, you might be interested to note that their submissions are now open if you'd like to see your poem in due course where mine appears today...!