by Helen Ivory | Apr 7, 2018 | Reviews
This beautifully judged pamphlet explores the complexities of a personal relationship with British drinking culture and those who inhabit it. The subject of alcohol for poets is not a new one, and the influence of alcohol on poets has been...
by Helen Ivory | Mar 29, 2018 | Reviews
I’m fortunate to live in Camden and be very close to Keats house in Hampstead. This September I was on holiday in Rome and visited the house where Keats died and also the English cemetery where he’s buried. An image of the young, poor, battered by...
by Helen Ivory | Mar 8, 2018 | 2018 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry, Reviews
#UsTogether I remember back in October, listening to some of those many conversations that started up in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations and was surprised to hear male news reporters being genuinely shocked when they asked women...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 26, 2018 | Reviews
This is a book of great clarity. Its poems draw strength from the twin securities of family and place before striking out boldly to engage with themes of death and loss. Dónall Dempsey’s new collection deftly shows readers how: ‘[t]he flag of self...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 6, 2018 | Reviews
Sunshine at the end of the world, Chris Hardy’s fine fourth collection, has time hanging over the forty nine assembled poems like the sword of Damocles; but rather than casting a shadow, Hardy’s awareness of the impermanence and fragility of things...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 27, 2018 | Reviews
Antony Owen’s fifth collection, The Nagasaki Elder (V Press), is one of those compelling slim volumes that reminds you what poetry can do when it confronts the big themes of our times – or any times. Those themes don’t get any bigger than war, and its...
