My latest OPOI review is on the Sphinx website. The pamphlet I reviewed is very apposite, given all the dreadful, mendacious shenanigans of Brexit. It’s also excellent, as one would expect from the pen of John Greening. As ever, there are lots of other, engaging reviews to be savoured.Merry Christmas to everyone and anyone who’s… Continue reading OPOI review of John Greening’s Europa’s Flight
Adventing
A suitably seasonal haiku of mine is featured over on the blog of Fokkina McDonnell’s Acacia Publications site. It seems like a lifetime ago that I wrote it and if ever there was a year in which time has played tricks on me, then it’s 2020. No wonder time-travel is such a key component of… Continue reading Adventing
Alchemy Spoon issue 2 launch
Last night, the YouTube launch of issue 2 of The Alchemy Spoon, the journal edited by Roger Bloor, Vanessa Lampert and Mary Mulholland, took place. It features poems by, amongst others, my fellow Red Door Poets Chris Hardy and Gillie Robic. My reading of my poem ‘Double Chemistry’ starts about nine minutes in.
On a haiku by Christopher Herold
early twilightsnow enters a barnon the backs of cows This haiku by the great American haiku poet, Christopher Herold, was the winning poem for ‘December’ in the Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar competition 2019. It was a very worthy winner.The first line enables the reader to see that beautiful, colourful light at the start of the… Continue reading On a haiku by Christopher Herold
Readings
Readings in which I participate are like buses: I wait ages for one and then, well, you know the rest. In the next few days, I’ll be taking part in two launches/readings:Thursday 10th, 7.30pm, for this year’s issue of 14 Magazine: registration details for the Zoom link are here.Saturday 12th, 7.30pm, for issue 2 of… Continue reading Readings
Podcast on The Rings of Saturn
I enjoyed this podcast discussion, 15 or so minutes in, on the ever re-readable The Rings of Saturn, not least because it involves Philip Hoare.
OPOI review of John Mole’s A Different Key
Here’s my latest one-point-of-interest review for Sphinx. There are lots of other new reviews there too.
David Cobb, 1926-2020
I was saddened to hear the news earlier this week of the passing last Friday of David Cobb.It’s fair to say that the overwhelming majority of haibun, haiku, tanka and renga poets in the UK may well not have become addicted to haikai forms without the enthusiasm and organisational ability of David Cobb. Although there… Continue reading David Cobb, 1926-2020
The Day of the Dead
It’s appropriate that today is the day on which my brothers and I have completed the sale of our parents’ house in Worcester Park, where they lived from 1988. On Saturday, I visited the house for the last time to check that all was well, but more to say goodbye to a place which contained… Continue reading The Day of the Dead
On Keith Hutson’s Baldwin’s Catholic Geese
Is it just my perception or have UK poetry reviews and criticism generally become – with the exception of one completely ludicrous, notorious and discredited outlier – kinder in the last few years? It’s within that context that I was surprised by the tenor and content of Rory Waterman’s review of Keith Hutson’s debut collection… Continue reading On Keith Hutson’s Baldwin’s Catholic Geese
