Short Reviews

DROpPED ONTO THE DOORMAT

Short Reviews of everything else that dropped through the door as a gift or because we bought them. MORTAL CLAY—Alan MacGlas (Pink & Green) ISBN 978 1 906708 36pp ( £8. 00)

A pamphlet of around 20 poems (mostly), divided into three sections in a variety of styles of poetry, pattern poems, autobiographical poems, one piece of prose and even a translation which leads to a dilemma, a plethora of styles and forms in this small collection looks like distraction on the part of the poet. Not that there aren’t some wonderful pieces in here MacGlas is at his best in ‘Leviticus and Numbers’ and in ‘The Coat’ where the poet’s voice comes across as warm and the poetry is conversational, intelligent and readable, as well as I imagine listenable. I feel that it would have benefitted from better editing and arrangement to create a better flow.PT

HERRING —Wullie Purcell (Read Raw Press) ISBN 978 1 907000 18 8 20pp (£6.00)

A booklet of poems about the world of coastal fishing. Simple, moving, authentic poems in the English & Scots of the North East of Scotland coast or so Sally Evans, the esteemed poet & publisher tells us on the back cover. 16 poems that have a cumulative effect and build to a gentle observational portrait of a community. Some of the poems are almost song like in their effect, affectionate and heartfelt. PB

LIAR LIAR—Brian McManus (Hedgehog Press) ISBN 978 1 913499 55 6 (circa 20 pp) (No Price

Listed) A barbed look at the response to the Covid Pandemic. Rhymed poems that deal with injustices perpetrated on the vulnerable during lockdown. Critical of government lies and big business’ self interest. The ludicrous realities of ‘ dealing’ with the outbreak from the point of view of care home residents, inept politicians and a world of promises that mean absolutely nothing. McManus’ memorial ‘for those who are not coming back’ pitches the villains and the heroes very effectively and with grim humour. JC

FAINT—Lucy Dixcart (Wild Pressed Books) NO ISBN 26pp £4.50

Covering topics of maternity, student life, office politics and day to day ephemera, you could be forgiven for thinking these were going to be poems that said the obvious and nothing more. However the words are powerfully and carefully chosen and go beyond the mundane with skill, craft and fearlessness. Well worth reading for its melodic lyricism. PB

SACRIFICE Sally Spedding (Hedgehog Press) 2020 ISBN 978-1-913499-29-7 32pp (£7. 99)

Sally Spedding offers no comfort in this pamphlet, a meditation on the darkest aspects of humanity. The poet, also known as an artist and crime novelist, divides her time between Wales and France, and her work dives into turbulent times and violent deaths at home and in Europe: a medieval Cathar massacre, a relative murdered in the Holocaust, a doomed escapee from a POW camp, a murdered child, whose grave was never found. Human cruelty towards the natural world is a recurrent theme, including the sacrifice of the title poem, ortolans served in a controversial (now illegal) last meal to the dying President Mitterand. The poet mourns the ‘language of love which only the ortolan sings, before drowned in Armagnac (…)’ and elsewhere observes how past horrors are buried and forgotten as modern life continues, literally building or planting over them. Loss and grief continue in an unbroken cycle however and these fine, dark and angry poems refuse to let us to forget.SB

MY BOSS Niall M. Oliver (Hedgehog Press) 2020 ISBN 9781913499396 13 poems 20pp Price un-

known. A sequence of short, pithy poems about bosses or one boss . The idiosyncracies of a boss laid bare with humour and wit. Reminds me of David Crystal’s poetry (maybe it’s the ampersands) Gordon Wardman’ s ‘High Country Hank’ , ‘Brendan Cleary’ s ‘Memos to Sensitive Eddie or Kevin Cadwallender’ s ‘Baz Uber Alles.’ Less developed than those three books but ultimately in that vein. Would like to read more in a fuller collection. My love of titles was not assuaged by the poems in this book as all poems start ‘My Boss’. Really it is one long poem beautifully executed and the obvious follow up is a sequence from the point of view of the ‘boss’ titled ‘My employees’. Can’t say more than this, my boss is polishing his hand stitched coat with germolene. PB

VEXED Z.D.Dicks (Hedeghog Press) 2020 ISBN9781913499211 60pp or so. Price unknown (Check the website www.hedgehog press.co.uk

for their vast output) This is one of those books which you’ll either loathe or love. Visceral , apocalyptic , muscular all are words that apply and used in the various book blurbs. The poetry is unpunctuated by conventional methods and instead uses spaces and line ends to convey a fractured dystopic landscape where mythologies and religion are in a head on collision with the contemporary shamanism of Dicks’ world of revelatory angels, gunslinging hunters, shaggy pirate beasts , cynical Greek philosophers and the mayhem of the mundane. It’s like watching a god create a world in sixty pages, sort of sci fi or graphic novel in its clothing and make up. Distinctive? Yes For everyone? Probably not. But nevertheless once you get used to its particular vision of Hell. It’s great.

PB