DREICH BROAD 2

DREICH Broad No. 2 £5.00

Winter 2021 Reviews of

YOUNG DAWKINS HUGH GWYNN-JONES LINDA JACKSON SANJEEV SETHI The Shape of a Poem Erotic Poetry Anthology

SHORT Reviews in DrOpped On the Mat With Priss Bliss Poetry & Interviews with FEATURED POETS LOUISE LONGSON YOUNG DAWKINS Poetry CHAD NORMAN’s CLOWN I CUSS

CHANGMING YUAN’s BILINGUACULTURAL POEMS Plus REVIEWS of GOPAL LAHIRI SADIE MASKERY JOANNA BOULTER MAUREEN WELDON JAMES McDERMOTT HADLEY-JAMES HOYLES & more

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maybe my Mother; Slow Walk Home/ Young DawI keep my radio on. kins/ Red Squirrel Press/ 78pp/ ISBN: 978 1 913632 03 8/ £10.00/ review : Rowena Sommerville In ‘Night Music’ he evokes a sense of change and new possibilities – travelling on a plane he finds a folded sick-bag on which someone has written I will immediately admit to my ‘there’s still a good song left in me.’ and he says that weakness for the poetic dude/ beat/campfire trope and say that I while other passengers are asleep ‘I hear the music expected to enjoy this book – and begin.’

In ‘Leaving Scotland’ he describes just that, I really did! These are honest poand his (not unqualified) fondness for the country: ems of a life lived as a quest for experience, understanding, pleasure and love. They are great to read But if it is fair and it is nearly never fair, on the page, and I can imagine them read aloud by, you may be forgiven for almost believing say, Jeff Bridges in a red plaid shirt, but I’m running this is the place the angels come away with myself…… to lay down with their lovers.

Young Dawkins grew up in America, evidently lived in Scotland for some years, and now feels that But if the poems are to be believed – and I choose he has ‘come home’ to Tasmania, or Lutruwita, its to – Scotland brought him the outstanding gifts of a aboriginal name, that he acknowledges. The very lover and a child, and the family then make their first poem ‘Once Upon a Time in America’, refers home in Tasmania, the geographical and emotional back to 1974 and the urgency of the hipster drive destination of his life’s slow walk. He celebrates his westward ‘and this is where my words begin.’ In son and the pleasures of happy domestic routine: ‘What the Blues is’ he says: The blues is a telephone that doesn’t ring, cars that don’t start, all those empty bottles, a broken television, the sound of rain on a trailer roof and the hungry smell of winter creeping up your street.

and as I lay you down in your bed, I like to imagine we are thinking the same thing:

Tomorrow, please.

Let’s do this all again tomorrow.

This is straightforward, undecorated language, and/ In the penultimate poem ‘My Wishes’, he outlines but full of atmosphere and very effective at convey- his poetic will and testament, and the kind of party he wants his bereaved wife to throw in his honour: ing a mood.

In ‘Letters’ he celebrates the written exchanges In a corner, of former (possibly boyhood) friends, now all makthere will be two young lovers ing their separate, challenging ways in the world: who have wandered in from walking the beach to discover the source of such joyful noise, It’s been eight years now with no idea at all why this is happening. since we last gathered, Let them stand together, arm in arm, seven since Billy died. taking it all in, We owe each other and then one will turn to the other and exclaim: the pleasure of memory. what a life, my sweet love.

We owe each other time.

I know that American nostalgia for a small town adolescence, and the invocation of masculine friendships, or doomed romances, or other relationships lost to life’s hard choices, may not be new subjects, but I thoroughly enjoyed his clarity, his emotions evoked through sparsely written examples, and the sense of honest life on the page – I had a strong sense of meeting the writer.

In ‘Radio’ he describes playing with his radio, hoping to hear voices of those lost to him:

What a beautiful, beautiful life!

So, this formerly downbeat, bluesy traveller has ended up with plenty to celebrate, and is grateful for that glorious fact – and I was glad to share some of it with him. The book’s title ‘Slow Walk Home’ is a pleasing summary of his sense of his own life to date, and I recommend this attractively produced and engaging collection of very human poems.

I patiently twirl up and down.

Old friends will find me, 2

Interview with

When do you know when a poem is complete and ready to be made public?

For me, I think it’s when it sounds right in my head/on the page and out loud. But I have to force myself to stop twiddling with it. I’ve been in the position – which I’m sure many have (or I hope so) – of changing a word or someYour latest chapbook ‘Hanging thing right at the last second before pressing ‘Send’. I tend Fire’ published by Dreich. Can to write and edit a bit and then leave it alone for a while, come back edit again, rinse and repeat until I feel that if I you tell us a little bit about your process of writing poetry, fiddle about with it any more it will just disintegrate. Then how you came to decide on the I attach it to an email close my eyes, deep breath and click! title and what the poems focus What poetry books or books are you reading at the on in the chapbook? moment?

I start with a germ of an idea I am trying to catch up on lots of Poetry Reviews that I or a phrase or just some ranhaven’t had time to read. I am loving Kim Moore’s The Art dom words I have written down. But I usually have some of Falling and Adele Cordner’s The Kitchen Sink Chronicles.

Read and am re-reading the gorgeous Glimmer o’ Stars by kind of subject or topic in Lynn Valentine; also, re-reading – and trying to give propmind. Nothing so fixed that it can’t be bent to my will, er attention to – Steve Ely’s Oswald’s Book of Hours and though! I find if I start with an intention in terms of the Dart by Alice Oswald (an Oswald theme going on, there), ‘message’ or ‘meaning’ – “Right! I’m going to write about that!” I very rarely end up writing about that. Things kind which I found fascinating but complex, so I need to read of grow and change organically as I write. I think I’m spec- those again, and concentrate better. Lots of different mags ulating all the time as I write, and different words lead me I subscribe to, as well. I probably don’t read enough and should do more, I know. off in different and unexpected – certainly unplanned – directions. Having said that, there are certain subjects on If you were to give poets one piece of advice on writwhich I like to write, such as nature, spirituality, myth, ing poetry, what would it be? (you are not aland that sort of thing. Also, I tend to write a lot about my lowed to say, ‘give up now before it’s too late’.) internal mindset, particularly my struggles with anxiety, depression, and loss. So, it all sort of weaves together (when I’m lucky!). Mostly, I find a prompt from books on Read more (!) and just keep writing regularly. Don’t wait writing I have, (such as Jo Bell’s 52 or poemcrazy by Susan around for inspiration to strike, just write something.

Goldsmith Wooldridge) things I see when out walking, What inspires poetry for you? Do you work and gardening, listening to people’s stories and cadences of work at poems or are they born of a single speech (my day job involves a lot of listening), doing flash of inspiration? courses online – anything really – and work at it. I do a lot of research if I come by a subject. For example, in Hanging Fire there’s a poem called ‘Theia’, the story of which I came I used to think, in a flouncy-sleeve-to-the-forehead sort of way, that one had to wait for inspiration, and very rarely across while researching about the moon. I make lists of wrote anything. There are times when I see something, or related words, images, start writing a few lines – always a word or phrase strikes me, and I scribble it down. I do pen/pencil and paper first and once I have a skeleton, I have a notepad by the side of the bed in case I wake up at start typing it up and then editing and changing as I go 3am (which I do tend to do, unfortunately, thank you along.

With Hanging Fire, it was serendipitous that I had written menopause) with a ‘great thought’ and can scribble it over a few months on those kinds of subjects and, on look- down, as long as the cat hasn’t taken the pen away to play with. ing at some of the poems I had got stashed away ready to When did you start writing poetry? Has the locksubmit, I noticed there were a number with moon, sun, down had a positive or negative effect on your stars, light things going on and I thought, “Crikey! I’ve got writing? a theme.” The poems are really a sort of journey through a Well, I started in a desultory fashion some years ago. day looking at the physical, elemental elements of being alive, feeling anxiety, love, sorrow within the beauty, mys- Mostly I wrote sort of ‘humorous’ verse, usually just to enter local competitions. I then met Deborah Alma, the tery, and magic of space. I toyed with a number of titles, Emergency Poet and founder of The Poetry Pharmacy in making a big list - largely focussed on the word ‘light’ I seem to remember - and humming and hawing for a cou- Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire. She came and did a couple of events for a mental health project I was heading, and I ple of days until the blindingly obvious struck me. I liked the double (or triple) meaning of ‘hanging fire’ in terms of was reminded of the impact of poetry on people’s wellbeing and how using it as a form of expression is so powerlingering and waiting for certainty before acting, the ful. So, I started to write a bit, but never seemed to find moon/sun/star - light in the skies and the literal title of the time to get anything finished. Lockdown has been a the artwork by Cornelia Parker. time of extraordinary release for me, though I am concerned about how I will ever get back to anything like

Louise Longson

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‘normal’ (for me) again. As I mentioned, I have an anxiety issue and had taken enormous strides to overcome it. I was generally fine at work, on public transport (I don’t drive), in restaurants and pubs – all sorts of places – after years and years of not being and spending a lot of energy keeping the anxiety at bay. While exhausting sometimes, this was happening. The not -driving, though, meant I spent a long time journeying to and from work on trains and buses – crowded ones where you have to stand up, so writing things whilst doing that didn’t really work for me (and I lacked the discipline at that point) - and keeping the anxiety under control was my main focus. Lockdown meant I had time. No travelling = less anxiety = a lot more headspace. I remember reading about people who had started learning Japanese, make sourdough bread, play the saxophone – all that sort of thing – and thought about writing ‘properly’. I had started making a few inroads with a Future Learn 3 week course and thought I would give it a go. But I knew I would need guidance, otherwise I’d just go back to the flouncy-sleeve tactic again. I looked around at online courses, but it’s so hard to know what’s any good or not. So, I asked Deborah, who recommended Wendy Pratt to me. Wendy does a number of brilliant online prompt-a-day courses (generally themed) via closed Facebook groups. They really, really helped. Having peers to support and offer constructive criticism and reading what others produced was so helpful. From there, I asked Wendy to mentor me for three months, and that was the real ‘game-changer’. She gave me a really good understanding of the process of writing and editing and – importantly – submitting work. I don’t think I ever would have done it without her encouragement. I’ve kept writing and submitting ever since. And since October 2020, I’ve had about 60 poems accepted for publication. It feels a bit ‘ish’ to say I’ve had a ‘positive lockdown’, but in the poetry respect, I have.

Five contemporary poets whose work inspires you Helen Mort; Tony Hoagland; George Szirtes; Clare Shaw; Pascale Petit Are there any poems you wish you’d written?

Not exactly, but there’s a poem by David Morley called Three which is the sort of way I would like to be able write about similar subject matter (a violent father) Final Question : Five all-time Favourite poets & Five favourite songwriters (or less).

Ted Hughes, Pablo Neruda, Adrienne Rich, Rupi Kaur, Fleur Adcock, Robert Frost (I know it’s 6!)

Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Willie Dixon, Jimmy Webb, Robert Johnson, Joe Strummer/Mick Jones

Title poem from

Hanging Fire by LOUISE LONGSON

Hanging Fire* On days in autumn when the rain is gentle, there is a glow of twilight, here.

Sometimes it feels like an underwater world, where

Sylvia Plath or Sharon Olds?

Eek. Oh. I think probably Sharon Olds, but that’s hard. I think Plath is fabulous, but I can’t get the stuff I learned in ‘A’ level English Lit out of my head when I read her, unfortunately, although it has started to fade. Olds, being a greater contemporary, speaks to me in different ways that seem more direct to me right now.

T.S. Eliot or John Cooper Clarke?

JCC. Sorry, TS, but he’s just cooler than you. That’s another tricky one! Can I have both?

Wendy Cope or Billy Collins?

Oh, you’re rotten, you are! I am going to go for Wendy, as she was the first poet to make me laugh and feel clever at the same time with Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis. I loved her pastiche Ted Hughes’ Crow poems.

Benjamin Zephaniah or Patience Agbabi?

the bare trees are barnacled with lichen, where leaves and pine needles are a coral reef, a sea-floor where green vibrates against orange and the tidal light ebbs and flows with the wind against the boughs of the sycamores. There is a submerged hush.

A presence nears. I glance over my shoulder and see, as though through the veil of the past.

It seems as old as the forest; an ancient rusting fire, a flame that perpetually burns.

•

Rotten, I say! Aaaggh! I met Benjamin Z at The Poetry Olympics at The Albert Hall back in 1996, and he was lovly and did a • stonking performance. But Patience is closer to my heart.

Based on Cornelia Parker’s 1986 sculpture and notes.

The sculpture can be located in the Forest of Dean in Hampshire www.hybriddreich.co.uk

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No More Tears I have chopped and sliced so many times I am immune to tears.

Peeling off the brown-paper wrapper of their skins to reveal crisp, white-fibre layers separated by the thinnest wisp of cellular silk, They have been the base of all my lifeexperiments: the successes, failures, the great dishes, pickles, preserves.

Their acrid, acid memory always lingers long after I have washed my hands, still the smell of them, a whiff of reminiscence in the air, in the morning, on my fingers.

LOUISE LONGSON TWO POEMS

Chiromancer Sometimes we wake early in the dark together, knowing by instinct I have dreamed I have swum too far away from the certain shore of you. Turning off the dark, the lamplight splashes on my face. Holding my hand, you trace the lines with your fingers, run the tips across my palm, lingering over the mounts and plains, down to my wrists and those unexplained stigmata crisscrossing the bracelets of love. Significance is deep-carved, lingering like the moon after sunrise.

Predict for me; that I will find love at least once. You are my lifeline, etched into the creases of my heart.

First published in The Poetry Shed

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DroPPed on the Doormat Short Reviews of some books arriving at DREICH.

Short reviews by PRISS BLISS

LOTHLORIEN POETRY JOURNAL Volume 1 (The Fellowship of the Pen) Edited by Strider Marcus Jones ISBN 978 1 008 90450 7 228pp UK Price £14.99 plus postage. An international Journal Poetry & prose. Online/ e-books / print.

From the online journal a print version containing around 64 writers and poets. LPJ advertises itself as a home for many types of poetry including free/rhyming & experimental along with stories, flash fiction, video poems and occasional interviews in its online presence. This first volume is a reflection of that and provides a platform for a diverse range of writers. The experimental seems to be (in the book at least) not very evident except in subject matter (although that might be down to my eclectic taste) or confining itself to unusual punctuation or layout.

But small gripes aside it’s a fascinating glimpse of one person’s vision in creating and producing what has become a mainstay for many poets and writers. https:lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/ ERASED A Pamphlet of found & erasure poems JAMES McDERMOTT (Polari Press) ISBN 978 1 914237 02 7 24pp. Limited edition.

A fascinating series of what the author calls ‘erasure’ poems. Consisting of a series of redactions of outmoded laws, acts of parliament, biblical passages, Which serve to point out how ridiculous they sound in this day and age. The erasures drawing us into the original documents and with humour and a pink high lighter pen effect bringing the glaringly bigoted decades of censorship and homophobia into focus by reversioning them for today. Completing the selection are a series of ‘found’ poems from from LGBTQ protest slogans, Oscar Wilde’s trial, Newspaper headlines & even the national anthem. The energy that drives these poems is evident throughout. Maybe they should give these out in the houses of parliament & lords or even on football terraces. A political statement as much as a poetry book. (Which is fine by me).

HUNGRY GHOST MAGAZINE Issue One/ Summer 2021 ISSN 2752 7476 Edited & designed by Leonie Rowland.

A beautifully designed book of prose (although I hear poetry will be included from Issue 2) Full colour throughout and full colour in its prose too. Quirky little stories and flash fiction on the theme of food/ hauntings/ the crossroads between the two, interspersed with Elizabeth Cowling’s perfect images plus a whole lot of collage, photos, delicate design elements and all manner of delicacies served up by the editor who shows a keen eye for the tastiest flash fiction. Honestly it’s just lovely.

THE WAKING HOUR Maureen Weldon RED SQUIRREL PRESS 28pp ISBN 978 1 913632 21 2 £6.00.

Legendary Irish poet Maureen Weldon who now lives in Wales, brings us some prime zen koans, epiphanies of experience if you will, in a slim beautifully made pamphlet. Her poems are tight and don’t waste words , getting to the heart and to the head simultaneously. Get one please.

There was a maze JOANNA BOULTER (epistemea press) 64pp ISBN 978 2 37900 020 1 £8.00 A posthumous collection from the poet and former co-editor of Arrowhead Press. A consummate poet with a distinctive view, her loss is a huge one to publishing and poetry. This collection put together and sort of crowd funded by poets and admirers of her work is a fitting end to her oeuvre.

From the opening poem ‘CopyRite’ Which casts the poet as creator in that lilting tongue in cheek way that Boulter’s poetry Presents itself to us, I am the Lord and Maker of this poem…

It shall acknowledge no other Name but Mine.

The poems range from the playful to the biblical, the personal to the observational with a delightful cast of animals, poets, places and self. There are so many poetry books out there but this one deserves a place on your shelf and in your heart.

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INTERVIEW : YOUNG DAWKINS “Poems are never finished -- just abandoned.” I stop with a poem when I think I can’t do anymore to strip it to it leanest, truest form. Of course, years later, there are words or phrases I think would improve the work. I am very much an imperfect poet.

The poems range across North America, Scotland & Tasmania . How do the scenes compare in each place and how do they differ?

I am fortunate to have lived my life in many spectacular settings. I am pretty sure that has been (often unconsciously) intentional, that I have sought out these magnificent places as a way to challenge myself to live and think a big and meaningful life. There have always been mountains, and there has always been the sea.

And I was always moving. First, back and forth across America, then across the ocean to Scotland and, finally, to the other side of the world to this island. I know Young, your book ‘Slow Walk home’ (review elsein my heart and in my soul that Tasmania is the final where) Will you tell us a little bit about your writing pro- place. But it was Idaho and South Carolina and New cess and how the many poems came together that form Hampshire and Edinburgh and the Isle of Harris that the book? stretched me enough to be ready for this.

Honestly, my actual writing process is a bit random. I am a slow poet – I will jot down an idea or an image, and then allow that seed to ramble around inside my head and germinate until it tells me it is time to put words on paper. Every poem is first written in pencil on a yellow legal pad. I try very hard to write pictures, to allow the reader to see the poem in their own head.

Slow Walk Home is a 40-year accumulation of various pieces of work. I think of those poems as word cairns marking the trail of my life. But I needed the help of a good poet friend – Kevin Cadwallender – to choose the actual poems and determine the best order.

You mention a lot of poets in your book. If you had to list five favourite contemporary poets and/or authors who would they be?

Wow. Just five? And contemporary …. Elmore Leonard, Haruki Murakami, Billy Collins, Kate Tempest, China Mieville – and I just finished the novel Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan which is one of the most stunning pieces of writing I have ever encountered. Sorry, that’s six…

Kerouac or Ginsberg? Steinbeck or Hemingway?

Billy Collins or Carol Ann Duffy?

Both big hitters. I have written about them. Ginsberg made the most of his opportunities. But Kerouac was The poems in the book reflect your geographical history the genesis, the source. Big Sur is both beautiful and either past or present. Do you believe this acknowledge- heart-breaking, a man realizing the dream is now ment of personal geography is something you do deliber- dancing forever out of reach. ately or is it naturally occurring?

Hemingway when I was a young man, Steinbeck now I don’t know how I could write without referencing the that I have some years on me. physical place and environment. I think people and I shared a stage with Billy Collins once in Portsmouth, place are everything, the beating heart of a strong po- New Hampshire, at the Music Hall -- a wonderful and em. Without that grounded context, I would feel kind man. He is the Pied Piper of modern poetry, somehow much less authentic. I read modern Australi- bringing us all along. Carol Ann Duffy is that quiet an poetry and am keenly aware that I am woefully in- counter-puncher, unassuming and perfectly sure. I capable of writing with such intentional opacity and reckon she will last longer in the canon. distance. I just don’t know how to do it. I strive to The Beats will always echo in me. I turn to Brautigan make my poems easy to access, not hard. Human when I need a kick in the ass. But the deepest influence presence and physical geography are essential eleon my writing now is rooted in Tasmania. More spements for me. cifically, the First Nations people -- Dreamtime, the . When do you know when a poem is complete and ready oldest continuing culture on earth, 60,000 years of to be made public? storytelling, a way of seeing and being life. I have I agree with the French poet, Paul Valery, who wrote, started performing a bit with an Aboriginal musi7

started performing a bit with an Aboriginal musician, a remarkable man named Warren. When I tell him I have started talking to trees, he just smiles and says, it’s about time.

You were Slam Poetry Champion for Scotland when you lived there. Do you write to be read on the page or to be read out loud?

Thank you for remembering that Slam I was the first poet from Scotland to go to Paris to compete in the Coupe de Monde. Finished 8th in the world. I definitely write to be read on the page. I was working at poetry long before I became a performance poet. I believe if you get the words right in the first place, the rest comes naturally.

A well-crafted poem will help carry a shaky or nervous performance. A good performance of a weak poem is .... a performance.

If you were to give a new poet one piece of advice on writing poetry what would it be?

One piece of advice? Trust your voice. No one else in the Universe sees things just as you do. The job is to share that view, open the doors wide to empathy and perception. You can't do that if you are trying to write the way you 'think' you should write. They are your words and they are precious -- own them.

There are lovely lines, ‘The Ceilings in Heaven are lower than I assumed’ (You May Experience some changes as we adjust your medication p.17) in which medication creates a meditation on a dysfunctional Heaven that is ‘as if the colours in a kaleidoscope have leached away through a cracked lens’ And the angels therein

‘ scare me. Too many wings.

And faces, and flames.’

There is a sense throughout the book that life is a struggle against the futile , that we are never very far away from despair and that the music of life is somehow in its final coda, that we are like an old pair of jeans ‘Gone at the crotch and faded’ (Pants p.37) That something we all know is relentlessly pursuing, ‘Sodden,walking barefoot Still, not running in fear But aware of the flood caressing my heels’ (Good Grief p.40)

Five Favourite famous poets & Five favourite songwriters / musicians (or less).

Not a comfortable read to be honest, but there are moments and phrases that will stick with you and Robert Frost, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Marie Howe, Ste- lines that may help you in coming to terms with illphen Dobyns, Cleopatra Mathis ness, grief, loss or just understanding This isn’t to say that the book is devoid of humour or Tom Petty, Adele, Willie Nelson, Bobbie Gentry, Taj doesn’t have a little cynical twinkle in its telling. BeMahal. cause it does, and the end of it all will be,

More REVIEWS Priss Bliss

we danced around the fires and sang

PUSH Sadie Maskery £5.00 ISBN 9781912455232 erbacce press. 40pp N.B. This is a printed proof so and ended unfortunately it has quite a few errors in it, which I’m sure will it all, be fixed as the book goes along.

Firstly and to get it out of the Boozing. way the layout is a bit distracting but hopefully this will be sorted Hopefully the layout and typos will be resolved. The out before publication too. poems deserve to be presented in their best possible light.

So just focusing on the poems. Sadie Maskery’s poems are delicate, confessional, fascinating and occasionally experimental. Full of ghosts, otherness, looking for the miraculous amongst the mundane.

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Leaving Scotland

How the Sky Stays Above Us I am changing now the congregation of years not age so much as a ripening view and I have started speaking to trees one big gum surely hundreds of decades I stop and look hard where peeling bark reveals cambium whorls like human fingerprints and multiples of tiny crawling things are not concerned I say thank you, Grandfather for holding up this part of the sky for the shade and shelter and after we kill them we count the rings marvel at what must have been cut me and you’ll see rings and deep bruises imagine what put them there but until the long night comes I am like that gum hold up my part of the sky give shade and shelter to those who come by

When it rains and it always rains, water runs so deep down cobbled streets that locals name these sudden rivers after those who may have been swept away.

When it blows and it always blows, entire counties are moved back in time to a place before electricity, the nights howling loud and dark.

But if it is fair and it is nearly never fair, you may be forgiven for almost believing this is the place the angels come to lay down with their lovers.

The morning we left, early November, I stood away from the road and looked to the hill behind a house no longer ours, remembering the last First Night before the baby came, making our way up the path in a soft haar that cleared at the top just in time for the bells and pop of cascading colours, strangers crossing arms and singing the auld song, then a low pipe away in a glen, the two of us sliding home full of whisky, hope and love.

The gorse is flowering now, bright yellow splashes between the rocks.

It is such a stubborn bush, renewed by fire.

And it knows its place, likely bloom up there forever.

Young Dawkins 2 poems from A Slow Walk Home Review on Page 2 9

CLOWN I CUSS CHAD NORMAN His poems have appeared for nearly 40 years in literary publications across Canada, as well as a number of other countries around the world, and also translated into Albanian, Spanish, Polish, Chinese, Turkish, and Italian.

He hosts and organizes RiverWords: Poetry & Music Festival each year in Truro, NS., held at Riverfront Park, the 2nd Saturday of each July.

In October 2016 he was invited by the Nordic Assn. for Canadian Studies to give talks on Canadian Poetry and read from his books at Borupgaard Gym in Copenhagen, and Risskov Gym in Aarhus, as well as other readings in both cities, and Malmo, Sweden. Because of that tour Norman has started the manuscript, Counting Coins In Denmark And Sweden.

In October of 2017 he read at various Eastern Canada venues in Kingston, Ottawa, and Montreal, reading poems from his Selected and New collection, published by Mosaic Press (Oakville, ON).

In October of 2018 he read at various types of venues from universities to cafes to pubs throughout Ireland, Scotland, Wales, while there he visited Swansea and slept three nights in the room where Dylan Thomas was born. A celebration of Canadian Poetry took place during this tour too.

His most recent books are Simona: A Celebration Of The S.P.C.A., out 2021 from Cyberwit. Net Press (India), and Squall: Poems In The Voice of Mary Shelley, out 2020 from Guernica Editions (Toronto).

He is currently a member of The League Of Canadian Poets.

His love of walks is endless.

CLOWN IN THE HOUSE OF PLASTIC

CLOWN ATTEMPTS TO HOLD A MEETING

Isn't it supposed to be clown in the Funhouse or clown in the bouncy house?

Not where I have worked.

I walk down the hallways unattached to any walls, the higher-ups, clowns up stairs, pretending they are engineers, yes, those higher-ups, put their panic on paper: "We have visitors coming in the morning-the lowly employee down on the floor, has two thoughts:

Never ask the workers what they think.

1. Hopefully they'll be from another planet, and, 2. If so, they will know you can't polish a turd.

Never ask the ones who actually do the job.

No, instead reward them with a cookie, a coffee, for years of safe service.

No... just sit up in your lousy nest and believe being a braggart grants you the right to arrogance, to be the master of a one-ring circus.

Clown I cuss... led by the mouth, the mouth unable to say a word to respect.

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CLOWN'S BOYS for T.W.

All of them, no, all of them eventually revealed their ways, dog-frigger at best, pretty much right after they bluffed their way through a probationary period.

Sadly most of Clown's boys became a weight in his pockets, a weight he loved to fondle throughout shifts.

Clown's boys easily seen among those others who actually had ethics, work ethics which meant they didn't strut through the departments at any time they chose, always holding a Tim's coffee, one which they seemed make last the entire twelve hour shift, a time most saw as a time to help the company profit.

But not Clown's boys, they knew they didn't have to work, or give a damn about any other crew member, knowing Clown would never ask for it to be any other way.

CLOWN'S BRILLIANCE It comes down from above and goes like this: Clown won't give any help to the worker who says he needs it, but Clown will give help to the guy who without a doubt is the plant's laziest, who every shift, just 8 hours long, takes 6-8 breaks, each one 30 minutes and more --do the math!-yes, Clown will give him a helper just as useless, even more so, someone during his shift who sits on his cellphone hiding between the rows of plastic, yes, those two will be perfect, each so skilled at wasting time, each one allowed to do so --paid for it, even-yes, it comes down from above.

CLOWN'S PERFECT EXAMPLE Clown is a crook and the crook is a clown.

Clown works for a crooked corporation and the corporation works because Clown is also crooked.

Clown enjoys being crooked and being a crook is all the corporation asks of Clown.

Clown has no control over his crooked ways, the corporation being crooked has the control over Clown.

So both work well Clown and the corporation caring little about being crooked or being a crook.

CLOWN'S RELIEF

When Clown thinks out loud it is the same thing said over and over.

"I am so glad I didn't have to run away in order to join the circus!"

CLOWN CHOOSES AUTHORITATIVE Let us continue with everything we know about nothing.

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CLOWN CHOOSES LAISSEZ-FAIRE No matter who I have in charge down there he or she knows nothing compared to the vast expereince I will tell you about.

Having been on that floor and being one of the hes Clown lives with a mirror in front of himself.

So when any of the crews act as if nothing matters, the teacher said each shift, what-ever will be will be, and, please don't try to say the word "What-ever", because it is my, yes, my doctrine, my way into how I can be less than a manager, and more than a well, never mind, just continue to waste this company's name.

CLOWN IN THE HALLWAY One step, only one outside the open metal gate became the step I made after what was a walk I had known for the 11 years I ended that day, a Monday, May 13th, the step I stopped at the top not to look back but to allow the begiining of a feeling my body withstood, my mind fully knew at the gate when I took the one step, the last step I'd ever take through that gate, into a hall I came to hate, a hall I drifted through at best, a hall somehow able to be where I glared at gladly Clown, at the empty look in Clown's eyes, at the look I knew so well, made up of an inability to show any care, one of the looks I spoke out about leaving Clown with, "I will not take it any longer...!

Imagine having to see such a look on the face of a clown, a clown without any make-up, a clown without any validity who I saw become, and still is the saddest clown I see stuck inside a circus Clown built and always bragged took a changing number of years to build, changing due to his need to brag during meetings never meetings, with more rings I cared to be entertained by, Clown and his ring-riddled circus there in the hallway so apparent the thoughts of quitting, walking, finally heading home to somehow ask

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The Art of Counting Stars/ Huw Gwynn-Jones/ Shearwater Press/ In ‘Tell Me’, he speaks of his father: 64pp/ ISBN: 978-1-7399181-0-1/ no price given/ reviewed by Rowena And I’ll tell you Sommerville of a father I think this may be a first collection who held me high, by this poet – there is no biog or list eyes wide with love of previous publications, so I can’t be and speechless joy sure – and it’s a fine one, a pleasure to read. I am sure that Gwynn-Jones will now find him- In ‘Just Here’ he speaks of visiting his ageing mother self dogged by the word ‘charm’, and ‘charm’ can be in his later life: such a double-edged compliment for writers…..however, when I say that I was charmed by this I told her what she needed book, I mean that I found it well-observed, skilfully to know, no more, no less written, human and humane, entertaining and empathetic - and surely these are all great qualities in poand for the first time in fifty etry! years, that I loved her.

That took her by surprise, The collection is largely an act of remembrance of his but in time, too, she smiled. childhood (the book cover suggests rural Wales in the 50s and 60s), and of family and other local char- The final poem, ‘A Sky of Stars’, returns to the title acters, plus the desire to leave, and the consequent theme, and moves us out from the childhood village sadness of having left. The opening poem ‘Village’ to the bigger skies of life and experience: says: (I have…..) where the ghosts of men might sup and widows listen felt love until it hurt to the glide of night owls. until I lost all sense of what to do with it In ‘The Company of Kingfishers’ he says: and have counted a fine place a sky of stars. to milk a few cows on the edge of a stream Now I am full of them. forever whistling a tune on its journey This is a well-produced book, the artfully simple covback to the sea. er drawing does a good job of representing the overall tone, although I am not sure about the small imBut he acknowledges his desire for newer, wider ho- ages which accompany some poems – only in the rizons – in ‘Morning Train’ he says: sense that they are stock images and I think it would have been better to commission the cover artist to I often dream of stepping out from behind draw something more idiosyncratic. But then, I am the sun-laden laburnum past shop and chapel also an illustrator, so perhaps I am bound to say and village school to cross the narrow riverthat…. bridge The Art of Counting Stars is a very enjoyable read, I Many of the poems celebrate people; in the poem think that its apparent simplicity hides/indicates a which gives the book its title, he remembers Arthur, high measure of skill, and it is undeniably charming. and his advice on counting stars: I recommend it.

you have to know how many your heart can hold then play the piano with your back held straight , until there’s nothing left but sound and blazing suns.

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The Cabinet, Linda Jackson Red Squirrel Press 2021 46pp ISBN 9781913632090 £ 6.99 Review: Siobhan Black The lovingly kept contents of a cabinet stir up memories of times past in this poignant collection by Linda Jackson. Twenty poems, each focusing on a glass or china souvenir, take us on a journey of the mind and heart, evoking the poet’s relationship with her late mother: ‘Questions and chat resplendent/sounding off echoing light as days/return and bring you back to me’ Moroccan tea glasses from Granada, paperweights from Sydney, a blue sugar bowl from Blackpool, these fragile, delicate objects have been collected over a lifetime. The memories range widely too: jokes, heartfelt conversations, caustic put-downs, sadness.

One poem recalls tetchy complaints about sore feet as the family go walking around Paris. In another, a glass replica of the Santa Clarita (Niña), part of Columbus’s fleet, is bought by her parents on holiday in Spain when her father is seriously ill, ‘tethered to disability’.

The small glass boat on a pale blue sea/ means both of you to me, seeing you there/by the sand in the sun, uncertain how/ much time there was left to run / together-before the final setting/ on one of you’ The poems work best when incidents and relationships are deftly woven in this way around the objects.

In Skye, her 80 year old mother buys a wine carafe, because it is what her daughter would choose, not her. This bargain with mortality and inheritance is given a humorous twist: No refusals would be heeded.

She needed to see it there/ in her cabinet to ask each New Year when we cleaned it./Still like that? But ye’ll just hiv to wait, dae ye hear/ me talkin tae ye?

Imagery of boats and birds, oceans, skies and flight, accompanies the family’s diaspora from Paisley across the world, and away from the poet’s kitchen.

This is now home to her mother’s cabinet and its memories. With grief comes fear of a new and more final loss as time passes. In the last poem, ‘The Angel’s Share’, memories must be ‘caged’ like the whiskey that inevitably evaporates from the last bottle enjoyed by her mother: ‘The Angel’s Share is still in there, unmistakeable,/as it

nudges and bumps time into place./My soul flies free on the back mirror-soaking up/ the scent of many unforgettable days.’

With its moments of lyricism and humour, this collection manages to keep hold of its Angel’s Share.

Alleys are filled with Future Alphabets: Selected Poems Gopal Lahiri, Rubric Publishing $25 138pp ISBN 9 788194586586 Review : Siobhan Black Gopal Lahiri's book explores the uncertain, liminal spaces between silence and speaking, between the past, present and future. The Kolkata based poet is a scientist by training and to some extent his work comes from the tensions between scientific observation and the uncharted territory of daily life and emotion. He also inhabits bilingual spaces: the poems in this book are in English but the poet also writes in Bengali and his writing references this rich heritage.

Strong on imagery, the poems have a lyricism which offers spiritual solace, but the beauty of nature is also undercut by uncertainty. A relationship is charted with nostalgia, pain and sadness, also with affection, as a couple try and sometimes fail to express their feelings over time. Elsewhere the language is surreal and modernistic, moving between the personal and political. In ‘Migration Camp’, current crises ‘dogfight, politics, barrel bombs, battered clock tower, whimper beneath the time capsule’ - contribute to a recurrent theme of personal estrangement: ‘I only count the exile years of my life/the cycle of transitions circle the silence’.

This interiority also explores a modernist view of language breaking down and the difficulties of selfexpression. Solace is found in memories of childhood and in a series of poems about Kolkata, the poet shows his fascination with the city, the complexities of urban life, past and present: ‘the darkest secret of the city empties stories, centuries old belief’. The impact of the pandemic and lockdown on the city and the terrors of illness are observed in detail, sometimes with surreal imagery: ‘endless rows of beds awaiting bodies/ like a science fiction movie’ (‘Transition’). The book’s title comes from the final poem, ‘New World in Waiting, which offers a sense of hope for the future: ‘A certain beauty is waiting on the street/with something that cares, that cultivates.’

Lahiri is a thoughtful and insightful poet, testing language, seeking and sometimes rejecting spiritual meaning, striking a balance between optimism and despair in difficult times.

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Self-Addressing: A Bicultural Poem In English, the speaker always uses A proper pronoun to address self In Chinese, the speaker calls self More than one hundred different names In English, there is a distinction between The subject and object case of self In Chinese, there is no change in writing Be it a subject or an object In English, the writer spells self with one Single straight capitalized letter In Chinese, the writer adds to the character ‘Pursuit’ a stroke symbolizing something In English, “I” ask for democracy, freedom Individuality, rule of law, among others In Chinese, “我” is habitually avoided in making A reply, either in writing or in speaking

Bilinguacultural poems

Changming Yuan

Chopstick Commandments: a Cross-cultural Poem Avoid one chopstick longer than the other in a pair That would recall what a coffin is made of Don’t plant them in the middle of bowel of rice Or dish, like a scent burning for the dead Never use them to poke around in a dish In the way a tomb raider works hard in dark Put them strictly parallel to each other; or you Would have yourself crossed out as a deplorable error If you drop one or both of them on the ground, you Will wake up and provoke your ancient ancestors If you use them to beat containers like a drum player You are fated to live a low and poor beggar’s life When you make noises with them in your mouth You betray your true self as a rude and rough pariah Never point them towards any one if you Do not really mean to swear at a fellow diner

Make sure not to pierce any food with them while eating When you do not mean to raise your mid-finger to all around you To use them in the wrong way is To make yourself looked down by others

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Changming Yuan Rain: an e.Pictographic Poem in Chinese 0000000000000000000000000 1 1 0000000000000000000000000 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1111 1 1111 1 1 1 1 1 1111 1 1111 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Etymology of Selfhood: a Straddling Poem 1/ I vs 我: Denotations The first person singular pronoun, or this very Writing subject in English is I , an only-letter Word, standing straight like a pole, always Capitalized, but in Chinese, it is written with Lucky seven strokes as 我 , with at least 108 Variations, all of which can be the object case At the same time.

Originally, it’s formed from The character 找, meaning ‘pursuing’, with one Stroke added on the top, which may well stand for Anything you would like to have, such as money Power, fame, sex, food, or nothing if you prove Yourself to be a Buddhist practitioner inside out 2/ Human & 人: Connotations Since I am a direct descendant of Homo Erectus, let me Stand straight as a human/人, rather than kneel down When two humans walk side by side, why to coerce one Into obeying the other like a slave fated to follow/从?

Since three humans can live together, do we really need A leader or ruler on top of us all as a group/众?

Given all the freedom I was born with, why Just why cage me within walls like a prisoner/囚？

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Outlining Chinese History in English: a Bilinguacultural Poem

1/ Ancient China They used to drink 茶/tea Wear 丝/silk Eat from 瓷器/china Think in terms of 禅/zen And practice 儒/Confucianism Only - is it true?

2/ Semi-Colonial China Wearing 长衫/cheongsam These poor 苦力/coolies arrived here On 舢板/sampans Always ready to 磕头/kowtow To a tycoon Who lived in 香格里拉/Shangri-La Eating 点心/dim sum Drinking 乌龙/oolong Playing 麻将/mahjong Gambling in a 开始呐/casino every day Though reluctant to give 赏钱/cumshaw 3/ Mandarin China Led by 道/dao A 阴/yin 走狗/Running dog Wearing 旗袍/qipao Is fighting against a 阳/yang 纸老虎/Paper tiger With 武术/wushu After getting 洗脑/ brainwashed Through 茅台/ maotai Like a 太空人/ taikongnaut At a 风水/ fengshui spot Dominated by 气/ qi

Bilinguacultural poems Changming Yuan 17

Hesitancies by SanjeevSethi Classix (a Hawakal imprint), 2021 Sumptuous Scrupulousness: Review of Hesitancies

by Amit Shankar Saha The importance of having scruples can never be undermined in life. Doubt is the basis of improvement. An unscrupulous person is not only just mawkish but also irresponsible and self-destructive. The literature of the English language is replete with instances of doubt being instrumental in the plot of a narrative. In the epic poem, Paradise Lost, Milton puts in the speech of Satan this attribute to God “who doubted his empire” (Book 1). In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth is scrupulous at first, but Lady Macbeth lacks all scruples. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a character who is filled with doubts. Such a character in modern poetry is seen in T. S. Eliot’s Prufrock. The hesitations that Prufrock has that prevent him from taking a decision stems from self-doubt, a state of uncertainty, a state of undecidability. It is this moment of hesitation, this moment of indecision which gives birth to that metaphysical instant where the world is rolled up into a ball.

Each of our hesitancies in life stops time and gives us a profound experience. Thereby we live more than the time we spend on this earth. Sanjeev Sethi’s Hesitancies is a book of such latent time-capsules.

Sethi is a versatile poet. In his poem “Bloodline” written for his “only niece” he writes about her visits every two years during the late summer. He narrates about a peculiar but unnoticeably common incident when the two of them initially hesitate to begin a conversation, often ending up talking together.

Gradually the formality in their relationship eases out. And soon, the uncle is affected by the energy of the niece. This ends his oblivion by gaining a soul for his silence. The whole poem is a delicate portrayal of a relationship between two individuals who are related by blood but are a generation apart. Any yet, it takes a trivial moment to connect and the energies to pass as if in a bloodline. Sethi’s achievement is to notice this moment and acknowledge it in the words of a measured poet that he is. His choice of vocabulary is immaculate – “serotinal tidings”, “our chinfests”, “launder the limbus”. He produces lines in the poem that makes the reader pause: “Even prayers need polishing”, “ensouling my omertá.” Apart from the choice of diction, there is also structuring of the poem that is striking.

The poem is written in quatrains with every fourth line of the stanza giving a thought slightly part from the preceding three lines, but as the poem progresses, this distance decreases. In the fourth and last stanza, it continues from the previous line completing the sentence. The very form of the poem conveys the message of the verse of how two people overcome their initial hesitancies and come close together and the idea of being of the same bloodline is established. This organic wholeness of the poem and the indulgence in the craft of it make Sanjeev Sethi stand out amongst contemporary poets.

Sethi talks in one more poem of his of getting energized. Characteristics of the metaphysical poets who presented intense passion in a highly intellectual way, Sethi presents in “WhoopDe-Do” two lovers breaking away from propriety in lovemaking, energized by a semblance of reluctance and doubt, that has a rather transforming effect on them.

In the narrows, I unlearned protocols of pleasure.

Your hesitancies energized my embrace.

Under the pennons of urge

I was another me.

The poem ends with the line, “My undoings lit many lyrics.” It has both figurative and literal meanings. It is not only a metaphorical reference but also a real admission if we identify the poet with the narrator, the lover. This type of highly sensual poem expressed in a rather cerebral fashion is rare. But we must not miss the keen observation that Sethi makes in the poem, something that echoes in another verse of his “Coition”: “Hesitancies coerced us/ to surrender our shields.” It is the scruples, the doubts that ironically compel a person to pursue of thing or an idea with more determination and a greater pace. It is an enlightened reflection.

In his poem “Slalom”, Sethi tells us a very personal story or rather a backstory in a beautiful and yet melancholic way: Under a brolly akin to a boletus we look for mislaid autumns in the gut of primordial responses.

It almost seems that the metaphysical poet is transforming into a romantic one. But Sethi as his protagonist in the poem, always remains “Like an obscured object/ in a painting…”. In “Proneness”, he again recalls the idea of hesitation being a hook that keeps one attached, how singleness can cast a spell and propel one into short bursts of passion that provides a sense of home for the time being. It is here that Sethi’s protagonist is very much like Eliot’s Prufrock. In “seclusiveness”, he treats his bones of everyday aches. He fills them “with the calm of calcium.” It is this myriad understanding of human hesitancies with all its aftermaths that are grappled by Sethi in a highly intellectual manner in this magnificent collection of poems that makes this book a treasure for the connoisseurs of poetry.

A reader of this volume, if he or she makes an effort to go into the interstices of Sethi’s poetry, will experience time-capsules of life and do so in a more profound way that he or she has ever imagined.

Amit Shankar Saha is the author of three collections of poems titled Balconies of Time, Fugitive Words, and Illicit Poems. A Pushcart Prize, Griffin Poetry Prize, and Best of Net nominee, he has a PhD in English from Calcutta University and teaches at Seacom Skills University. His website is www.amitshankarsaha.com

Sanjeev Sethi’s ‘Wee’ chapbook available from www.hybriddreich.co.uk

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SONGS OF THE HEN OGLEDD Hadley James Hoyles WILD PRESSED BOOKS £6.00 30pp NO ISBN

The Shape of a Poem : The Red River Book of Erotic Poetry 254pp $14.99 ISBN 978819481646 1 RED RIVER. Edited by Srividya Sivakumar & Paresh Tiwari Books of erotic poetry often fail because they are created from this side of pornography or are created merely for the titillation of their readers or worse turn out to not be erotic at all. This book manages to circumvent all those failings.

From the beautiful, delicate line drawings of Paresh Tiwari which merge leaves and flowers with hints of bodies you know you are at a different starting point. Beautifully designed by Dibyajyoti Sarma I often think that erotic poetry is defined by what it doesn’t talk about, what it hints at , suggests in a way that enables a vicarious participation and does not offend by brutal objectification of gender.

As it says in the introduction which is prefixed by an Audre Lorde quote which places ‘ the erotic as the deepest lifeforce’ not as ‘ an easy tantalizing sexual arousal’ .

As it states in the introduction to the book , ‘The erotic is not an easy animal to possess’ but ‘ When it is from a place of consent, even a salt shaker passed across a table is erotic’ Shunning poems that ‘objectified gender, spoke of violence and non consensual situations’ leads to a careful and mindful selection. Ultimately the idea that the erotic should come from a place of tenderness, love even, is what places this book above others.

So no ‘cheap thrills’ here , no lessening of poetic force for the sake of titillation.

Predominantly this is a book of poems mostly written by poets based in India although there is a seasoning of the rest of the world with poets based in the USA and the UK including Scotland and from Bangladesh, Italy, Pakistan, Mexico, Portugal, Israel and Canada.

So to the poems. There are nearly 80 voices writing across this 254 page book so as I believe that anthologies are a sum of their parts and it is the cumulative effect of the book that conveys what a book is, I’m not going to single out any one poet. However just to say that if you were wishing to dip your toe into erotic poetry in a safe and welcoming collection, this is your chance. Read the confession by the Editors at the end it is revealing and gets to the heart of poetry and life, and if you get a glimpse of the light within the editors’ hearts you know with certainty you will find that inner light in the poems too. PB

Both ancient and modern this modest chapbook contains a lot of terrific writing. A mythical landscape inside a metaphorical one or vice versa?

Nature crashes into history as it crashes into mythology and we end up with a very 21st Century split view of the fractured nature of identity and self.

The past colliding with the future and the present My favourite poem here is Morþor. The Old English for Burden or Murder maybe?

Which is on the surface a Yorkshire man losing his accent to a dominant Scottish accent. This is done in a Yorkshire dialect but you could replace Yorkshire with any other dialect and the watering down over time, when you no longer use your initial accent and the need to be understood elsewhere takes precedence and going back means your tongue is split. A situation recognised by many who have moved beyond their birthplace.

Accent keeps slipping away Nonut wuds mek sense in Scots Fanceh Scots. A once forgot To onner’sovrenteh o’saycrid tung Ollit got meh wirra belt in’faesce Sickkerit, a wont ma voice bak…

Fabulous .

The rest of the poems are in a more standard English and cover a diverse range of topics and geography but all are tied to a mourning for the lost.

Whether it is language, the past, or the tragedy of the banal replacing the meaningful.

These are poems to take your time and let them sink into you, like rain on a freshly seeded field. The time you take to appreciate them will repay your efforts.

If you want something to stretch what you think poetry is. This is the wee book for you. Recommended PB

www.wildpressedbooks.com hjhoylespoetry.wordpress.com

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Between £4 & £5 each plus postage Published by Hybriddreich Ltd. www.hybriddreich.co.uk dreichmag@gmail.com Jack Caradoc on Facebook Twitter @Dreich25197318 Edited by Jack Caradoc Dreich Logos copyright Ellis C. Reviews ROWENA SOMMERVILLE, PRISS BLISS, SIOBHAN BLACK & JC 20