The heights of timelessness: Morgan Yasbincek launches ‘The Grand Reopening’ by Toby Davidson
The title taps us all at those points during the pandemic and in life where, after losing the world as we know it, we walked through all that is gone.
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New perspectives and insights: Vaughan Rapatahana and John Gallas introduce ‘Te Purere/The Exodus: The Anthology of Expatriate New Zealand Poets’
Te Pūrere translates approximately into the English language as ‘getaway’ or ‘exodus’ and is an especially appropriate title for this anthology of New Zealand poets who continue to reside or have recently lived overseas as expatriates for lengthy periods. Their rationales are many and varied – ranging from employment, through relationships, to life-choice decisions to remain overseas
The immediacy of the message: Mark Roberts reviews ‘Each Night I Count My Children: Poems From Gaza’
The recently published chapbook, Each Night I Count my Children: Poems from Gaza, is one example of how poetry has survived in the rubble of Gaza and, indeed, how it has become an essential part of the struggle to keep Palestinian society and culture alive.
Insight, tenderness, humour, and fire: Esther Ottaway launches ‘Incandescence’ by Susan Austin
In Incandescence, Susan has crafted a collection that arises from the everyday, while expanding into the universal. These themes of parenting, caregiving, surviving a pandemic, holding a marriage together, walking through grief, and making space for joy, even amid exhaustion, mean that her poems glow with warmth and insight, even when they explore moments of deep difficulty.
Surprising views and tender portals: Debbie Lim launches ‘The Ease of Eggs’ by Benjamin Dodds
A Dodds poem may be as likely to be set in a classroom as on a farm paddock as on a film screen. It may take the form of couplets, stepped stanzas, a concrete poem, a list or even an erasure.
A heartfelt attempt to capture the fragility of life: Barbara Dunne reviews ‘Mimesis’ By Michael Quinn and Joe Boske
Many of Michael Quinn’s poem deal with the personal and collective trauma in the Irish psyche.
Vast, unquenchable curiosity: Les Wicks launches ‘Sejours en France et autre pays’ by Ron Wilkins
Firstly, one has to marvel at the vast, unquenchable curiosity that runs through Ron’s work. There is a global shortage of this invaluable human trait. You find it everywhere in this book from communal bathrooms in Japan to the nature of the human soul.
Guth a thabhairt (Giving voice): Michael Witts reviews Seang (Hungering) by Anne Casey
This beautiful collection is both a joy to read and a challenge. Each poem stands as part of a carefully curated section. The sections combine to form a collection which demands to be read as a whole,
A celebration of informed and fruitful difference: Gig Ryan launches ‘The Wallace Line’ by Jennifer Mackenzie
Jennifer Mackenzie’s work is often ekphrastic, inspired by, or growing out from, another work of art. She doesn’t describe that work of origin, as if outside of it, but becomes thoroughly embedded, moving between direct quotation and poetic re-imagining.