Apologies for the paucity of posts in recent weeks, which has mainly been due to an absence of material from the editors. A number of book reviews are in the pipeline, including - if either of us can get hold of a copy - Lee Harwood's latest, Gifts Received, which, if it's of the same standard as his work invariably is, should be well worth a gander. If any kind reader knows where the editors might be able to procure a copy, we would be grateful if you could let us know.
In lieu of any full reviews, here's a short list of recent recommendations, based entirely on personal prejudice:
RF Langley, The Face of It (some startling material here, reminiscent of Prynne at times, and, more readily, the work of Michael Haslam)
Thomas A Clark, The Path to the Sea (a new-ish Arc collection from the former concrete- now, what?, landscape-poet. Wonderful stuff; shows Kathleen Jamie how Scottish nature writing really aught to be done. Unlike anything else, really, unless you go all the way back to Basho)
CD Wright, Like Something Flying Backwards (a surprise, as I've not come her work before. Rewarding: earlier material betrays an influence, to my mind at least, of James Wright [no relation], later work moving towards more complicated structures built around linguistic permutation, clearly in debt to the Language-school and Ron Silliman's theories of the 'new sentence', but doing something very different with it, rooting it in a Southern rural landscape and language, for one thing. One to explore further, methinks)
All will be reviewed in the fullness of time.
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