A 100-page A5 magazine with 70 pages of poetry (4 of them by a Featured Poet), 10 pages of prose, 8 pages of reviews, 5 pages of contributors' notes, etc. Amongst the poets are Carole Bromley, Angela France, Gill McEvoy, John Mole, D.A. Price, etc. The editor's had some time to settle in now - there are submissions windows and a poetry competition - see their web page for details.
It begins with a villanelle. After that there's barely an end-rhyme. There's poetry like John Mole's ("Waiting for test results/ I recall my father's bookshelf/ And the embossed gilt spine/ Of Black's Medical Dictionary.// How I would take it down/ When no one was around/ To find the condition/ That matched each new ache ..."), Edward O'Dwyer's ("If she knew the things/ you've thought/ as she has shovelled your chips/ in a brown paper bag,/ your two battered sausages,/ extra salt and vinegar,/ predictable as rain/ on a bank holiday weekend ..."), Varasahya's ("The ice cream/ scoop isn't/ working./ The release/ on the handle/ has jammed") and A.A.Marcoff's ("could/ we/ interpret/ the/ integrity/ of/ fishes ...") amongst pieces like Bob Beagrie's
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daylight fading the voice of the sea climbs the shelves of shingle, turns the air into frills of lace that decorate the forests of our lungs |
I liked both the longer prose pieces. Here's an extract from e.g.Jönson's -
| For a while, I lived in the part of Malmö where a hijab is as common a sight as an unveiled head, and women covered from head to toe billowed down the streets like sailboats in mouring; stopping to buy tomatoes, perhaps, or tins of fruit. Once, on the bus, the driver refused one of these black-gowneds the ride, on account of not being able to see her face. "You could be anyone," he argued and I turned my head, embarrassed, and thought: so could I |
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