Review by Emma Lee of "Not Even October" by Tim Relf

Not Even October is a collection that looks back on the ordinary moments that shape lives, while hoping that life still has more to offer. In "Time is running out" a "welcome home" banner feels celebratory until the poet learns it’s "for someone you later heard was coming home for the last time" which gives it an extra poignancy.

There are poems that push at what poets are "supposed" to write or not write about, e.g. in "Roadkill," where "poets must not linger by dead objects in the road" and those who claim there are rules are 

          the people who claim prose poems don’t exist then spend hours picking
          at the bones of line breaks. You’ll find them staring off –
          heroically and tragically – in their author photos as if they’re trying
          to see beyond joy and love, beyond moons, shards, flowers, geese,
          lambs, crows, cow parsley, beyond the whole damn kit and caboodle
          of clichés.

The frustrations of bureaucracy and "computer-says-no" scenarios feature too. "Proof of life" drips with the exasperation of those captcha tests. 

The title poem is about lighting the first fire of the year as the chill of autumn begins, memories of "sleepovers, beaches, bike rides," and ending "I’ll sit and watch / today go up in smoke." "May" deals with the superstition of bringing hawthorn into the house, as the poet breathes "in a shower of speckled blossom. So much for that stench: / it’s a myth. If this is how death smells, well, perhaps / there’s nothing to be afraid of, after all."

There’s a wry humour and Relf relishes poking fun that those who impose restrictions while championing those who rebel, demonstrating how humans connect and evolve. Not Even October probes the everyday, asking readers to see the extraordinary in the ordinary and look again at what seems familiar in these lively poems.

About the reviewer
Emma Lee’s publications include a novel Stalling an Ambush (Pegasus 2026) and poetry collection The Significance of a Dress (Arachne, 2020). She co-edited Welcome to Leicester (Dahlia Books, 2016) and Over Land, Over Sea (Five Leaves, 2015), reviews for magazines and blogs here. She is Treasurer for Leicester Writers’ Club.

You can read more about Not Even October by Tim Relf on Creative Writing at Leicester here.