by Kate Birch | Aug 21, 2026 | Reviews
The poems in Jennie E. Owen’s The Horses Still Run (Dragon Fly Eleven, 2024) were imbued with an ambient fear – a low, persistent hum beneath the surface, an unease with a world out of step, both ecologically and socially. Fear remains central in...
by Kate Birch | Aug 19, 2026 | News, Picks of the Month
I love it. It so accurately demonstrates the painfulness of those early days when your language competency is so limited that your personality feels suppressed! A spare, straightforward poem utilising what editing intern Sabine Wilson-Patrick called a ‘blunting...
by Kate Birch | Aug 12, 2026 | Reviews
Maybe it is happiness / mistranslated. This book quietly rearranged what I thought poetry was for. What I initially mistook for simplicity in Sluman’s clear and rhythmic verse I later realised was an embodiment of endurance. Pain Songs (Nine Arches Press) is a...
by Kate Birch | Jul 16, 2026 | News, Picks of the Month
Something wholesome and devastating about this poem. It stayed with me – it grew inside me. It has a classic feel to it. The word beautiful was written over and over again in voters’ comments but there was also an ambiguity, a tinge of sadness and it is...
by Kate Birch | Jul 6, 2026 | Reviews
A poem by Graeme Ryan Artwork by Georgina King This is such a generous book – the very first things the reader notices are its large square size, and its glowing colours. There is a palpable sense of successful collaboration between poet and artist going on here. The...
