Edward Ragg Vital Signs book cover Vital Signs draws on the inspiration of the medical vital signs in three parts – ‘Body’, ‘Pulse’ and ‘Breath’ – each with nine poems that explore romantic love, death and the experiences of grief and loss in a poetry that is as embodied, pulsing with life and rhythmically breathing. “Vital Signs” is split into three sections, “Body”, “Pulse” and “Breath”, all three with nine poems that explore enduring love and the experience of grief with a compassionate eye. There’s a cat poem too that draws on the tenderness between pet and human which emerges over time, s ..read more

Jonathan Koven Mystic Orchards book cover “Mystic Orchards” is a collection of poems, including prose poems, and hybrid pieces, which mix prose and poetry, which explores environmental and cultural concerns including heritage and identity. The mystic part of the title suggests a spiritual (although not necessarily religious) journey and the orchards a space for seeding, growth and nurturing. An early poem, “Stilled Wings” which has the speaker moving sacks of dead fireflies where he will “Toss fistfuls into a wishing well Watch sound-circles remember glimmering tails In the cold black water mo ..read more

Eleanor Lerman Slim Blue Universe book cover The first poem, “Karmann Ghia” sets the tone with its observation, “driving around in your Karmann Ghia like all the rock and rollers, the queer disciples who helped me with my homework in 1968— I am not done with you.” The poem ends, “Well, this is what happened. At least you could have left me the keys to the car.” Those who’d helped with her homework, who could have been mentors, seem to have left, trusting the poem’s speaker would do the right thing for her. She, though, thinks they could have helped give her a better start, a means of setting o ..read more

Yilin Wang The Lantern and the Night Moths book cover “The Lantern and the Night Moths” is a bilingual edition, publishing poems by Qiu Jin (1875-1907), Zhang Qiaohui (1978-), Fei Ming (1901-1967), Xiao Xi (1974-) and Dai Wangshu (1905-1950), in Chinese with the English translation on the facing page. There are notes after each group of poems by each poet discussing the challenges and approach to translation. The Chinese has been presented in simplified Chinese script with transliterations using the Pĩnyĩn system. Yilin Wang is a native Mandarin speaker. Qiu Jin’s “A River of Crimson: A Brief ..read more

Bora Chung “Your Utopia” book cover “Your Utopia” is a collection of eight speculative short stories translated from Bora Chung’s Korean into English by Anton Hur, the same collaboration that worked on the Booker Prize shortlisted “Cursed Bunny”. Narrators in the stories in “Your Utopia” range from junior employees, a lift, a transport vehicle and a 120-year-old woman among others. While these are speculative, set in the future, their themes and concerns are recognisable in our present. First story, “The Centre for Immortality Research”, feels like a corporate satire as a junior employee is gi ..read more

Rory Waterman Come Here to This Gate book cover Rory Waterman’s fourth collection begins with a sequence in memory of his father who passed away in 2022. “The Shortest Day, Intwood Ward” ends after a list of symptoms with the important word “months”, the poem ends with the father asking what the date is, “‘The twenty-first, Dad.’ ‘Just another day here.’ Then he chuckles, tells me something else I recall differently. ‘Dad?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘I’m proud of you.’ He grins. It fades. Does he know that can’t be true?” The sentiment is echoed in “Twin Oaks Nursing Home”, where the father says, “You’re a good ..read more

Diana Powell things found on the mountain book cover “things found on the mountain” is set in the Welsh Black Mountains in the aftermath of the Second World War and merges fictional characters with factual ones. It follows Beth, whose brother Daniel is conscripted to fight and sent abroad. In the next valley work begins on a reservoir, and a colony of artists arrive in 1924, to live in the disused Anglican monastery, Llanthony Abbey, at Capel-y-ffin. The artists’ colony is headed by Eric Gill, primarily a sculptor, whose work is now mired in controversy due to his sexual abuse of his daughters ..read more

Do you need a social media platform to be a writer? If so, how many followers? Does it need to be TikTok, YouTube, a blog, twitter/X, Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Bluesky, Mastodon or all of them? Will not having a platform prevent you from getting published? Publishers are looking for writers to promote their own books and help promote magazines and anthologies you are published in. Certainly, if your work is borderline or a choice has to be made to convert that shortlisting into an acceptance, having a platform makes you more attractive. Just as a job applicant with prior experience usually ..read more

The Whiskey Tree book cover “The Whiskey Tree” takes its inspiration from a Lawrence Ferlinghetti quote, “Poets, come out of your closets, open your windows, open your doors, You have been holed up too long in your closed worlds” and is an anthology of poets pushed out of the closets and into the natural world. Alan Parry’s “Mother of Seas” conjures up painter Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky’s turbulent seas where, “denial becomes frothing saltwater rum & as men of streets drink titanic waves grow & crash through windows anemones crawl along bars between barnacles seeking shelter outsi ..read more

Mary Gilliland Ember Days book cover Traditionally an Ember Week would mark the summer or winter solstice or the spring or autumn equinox, a time of reflection to celebrate achievements so far and acknowledge plans for the future. Also a time to reconnect with nature and the cycles of the natural world, the balancing of light and dark. Mary Gilliland focuses on the natural world in her poems along with consideration for individual selves – how people relate both to others and the world around them. “Infinitives” starts “To admit the fields are on fire, oil fields,/ though we do not yet see the ..read more