Review by Paul Taylor-McCartney of "The Language of Now" by Anne Caldwell

Anne Caldwell’s The Language of Now is a collection of prose poems that moves quietly but insistently through memory, landscape and the fragile textures of everyday life. Rooted in a northern sense of place, the book also engages with illness, ecological unease and the emotional afterlife of recent years.

Caldwell has become one of the most assured contemporary practitioners of the prose poem, and this form suits her especially well. These pieces are compact but spacious, lyrical without becoming vague. They unfold in paragraphs that seem at first conversational, then deepen into something more meditative. Her work returns repeatedly to bogs, backstreets, moorland, weather and overlooked urban edges, yet these are never simply settings. They are charged spaces where memory, vulnerability and the more-than-human world meet.

Caldwell’s restraint is one of the collection’s greatest strengths. She lets emotion gather around an image until it becomes quietly affecting. In "Wasp’s Nest," the speaker listens for "the ragged edges of our lives," a phrase that captures much of the collection’s mood: vulnerability, endurance and the sense that contemporary life often feels slightly frayed. In "Widdop Gate, High Summer," the moorland is described as "egg-shell delicate," and later as "a map of the whole world in miniature." These small phrases open outward with surprising force.

Some of the most moving poems connect strongly with questions of class, culture and language. "Boundary Lane, 1974" in particular stirs that recognition. Its backward glance towards a childhood street, and towards the social world carried in place and speech, suggests how deeply early surroundings shape us. Caldwell’s attention to ordinary language and remembered environments prompts a nostalgic return to childhood: to voices, habits and local textures that once seemed fixed. What these poems understand so well is that growing into the present often means letting go of much that was once familiar in order to make way for the new. 

The title poem suggests another dimension of the collection’s thinking. Caldwell writes that the language of the present moment "now drifts away like a driftwood smile … or a Spring moon waxing and waning." These images capture the book’s underlying concern with impermanence: the sense that language, memory and even identity shift continually with time.

Elsewhere the emotional register deepens into something more intimate. In "Lost Daughter," the line "I wrote a letter: Dearest Daughter, how I longed for you. To hold your butter-coloured toes in my hands" carries a tenderness that is both personal and universal. The image is simple, yet it holds an entire emotional landscape within it. 

What emerges from The Language of Now is a poetics of attention. These prose poems do not seek dramatic revelation. Instead they offer something quieter and more enduring: a way of seeing the ordinary world with renewed sensitivity. In a literary culture that often rewards urgency and noise, Caldwell’s work reminds us of the value of patience, listening and careful noticing. This is a subtle, moving collection that stays with the reader long after the final page, and invites return, offering a brief but beautifully crafted space for quiet reflection.

About the reviewer
Paul Taylor-McCartney is a writer, post-doctoral researcher and lecturer. His interests include speculative fiction, queer studies, children’s fiction and initial teacher education. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in print and electronic form. He recently published his debut children’s novel, Sisters of the Pentacle (2022), and his work as commissioning editor resulted in two titles winning prestigious regional awards. His first non-fiction title, Cornwall Uncharted: Mapping Cornwall’s Queer History of Concealment, Culture and Creativity, is due to be published by The History Press (June 2026).

You can read more about The Language of Now by Anne Caldwell on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Maria Taylor of "Grief's Alphabet" by Carrie Etter

At its heart, Carrie Etter’s fifth collection Grief’s Alphabet poignantly explores the loss of the poet’s mother and describes the impact of bereavement. Yet Etter’s collection is also as much about death’s antithesis – it is a celebration of life and the love which binds parents and children. 

This is not a collection which shies away from the painful aspects of grief. Etter’s poems have a piercing clarity about the rawness and truth of grieving that I admired very much. In terms of form, there are a great many prose poems and pieces which work with the white space of the page. In "The Last Photograph," Etter works with the "golden shovel" form to recreate a poignant moment between mother and daughter:

"Smile" I said, positioning the camera for
the last time. You turned slowly; you
struggled to smile, the lamplight a halo, cultivation
of a minor saint. 

The poem is accompanied by a photo of "Modie," Etter’s affectionate name for her mother. I found myself going between reading the poem and looking at the photo and thinking about how "the strength" Etter’s mother took to "lift her face" is a key image in terms of describing the final shot. Etter is unafraid at exploring the more difficult aspects of grief, those in which the grievers somehow blame themselves for the pain of the final days: "Blame this photo on the love or the / selfishness of daughters before they meet the dark."

Etter’s poems have a pinpointed quality at placing the reader in the immediacy of the moment. In "Homing," Etter writes about a trip to see her mother, where the pair are reunited and their close relationship is instantly rekindled: "If rain fell, we lingered, enchanted in the rooms where it could best be heard." The "rain" here works as a cocoon, a natural shield in which mother and daughter enjoy a comfortable companionship: "… we talked like this for days. I was that red cardinal on the white lawn, easy in brightness, except I was two: we."

Grief is often bittersweet; interspersed in this collection are poems of deep love. "An Adoption in 360°" takes us back to the beginning of the "two" as mentioned above, becoming "we." There is something incredibly tender in how the poet describes the day of adoption:

From the front, she carries a swaddled infant,
And both the man and woman’s bodies curve to shield it,
Though it is April in Illinois and the day mild.

From either side the three are one. 

I loved this collection. I found it compelling and have already read many of the poems several times. The inclusion of photographs also heightened my relationship with the poems. Etter has succeeded in writing a deeply personal collection, which at the same time is notable for its lyrical precision and variety of poetic styles when thinking about grief in all its different guises.  Grief’s Alphabet is a deeply memorable and evocative poetic tribute. 

About the reviewer
Maria Taylor is a British Cypriot poet and reviewer. Her latest collection is Dressing for the Afterlife (Nine Arches Press). She has been highly commended in the UK Forward Prizes for poetry. She also works as Reviews Editor for Under the Radar.

You can read more about Grief's Alphabet on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Vic Pickup of "Machine Journey" by Richard Doyle

Machine Journey is a pamphlet of meanderings, listings and questions being asked. It holds our attention in the dramatic scenes of ‘Encounter with the Angel’ and ‘Detective,’ appeals to us in ‘The Writer’ about overcoming blockage and Imposter Syndrome, and charms in the wonderfully rhythmic ‘Slough in my dreams.’ Darting between place and time, the poet maintains a consistent voice and style through this collection of mostly prose poems. 

Doyle’s final entry in this pamphlet, ‘The Perfect Stroke,’ was the work that fascinated me most. Robert Frost once said, ‘No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader,’ and I can’t help wonder if the poet had a plan when he began writing this poem.

Insightful, precise, alluring and mysterious, this poem drifts from the obvious to the … not so obvious. Each stanza begins ‘The best thing about swimming is …’ before exploring a sense of challenge, ‘I can swim from start to finish with only two breaths,’ then ‘that sense of freedom. / No clothes or money or shoes, just your swimming trunks, / goggles and a locker key.’ 

Lists are a feature of many of Doyle’s poems, and this serves to lull us into a methodical rhythm, pleasantly subdued for when something out of the ordinary appears. And that’s precisely what happens here, as ‘the other swimmer’ appears at the end of each section: ‘My eyesight is much better with / my goggles but I could only glimpse a blurry shape moving / through the water.’ 

‘Every time I stopped to look / across, the swimmer turned around and dived deep.’ Depth is a point of intrigue for me – the casual reference to the beauty of swimming, how the water becomes you, then this other creature emerges, dives, and the poet is suddenly questioning our ancestry, back to when ‘humans were / semi-aquatic and this is why you can submerge a newborn / in water and they will hold their breath and start paddling.’ 

In the final stanza we arrive at ‘the perfect stroke,’ the ‘sweet spot’ where the subject is at one with their environment, twisting and moving, evolving into something quite other. I can say no more without spoiling the poem, other than Doyle concludes with a sudden turn which he is adept at reproducing throughout his work – a skill which makes his poetry fun, engaging and full of surprise. 

About the reviewer

Vic Pickup is a previous winner of the Café Writers and Cupid’s Arrow Competitions, and shortlisted for the National Poetry Day #speakyourtruth prize on YouTube. Lost & Found is Vic’s debut pamphlet, published by Hedgehog Poetry Press and featuring Pushcart-nominated poem ‘Social Distancing.’ @vicpickup / www.vicpickup.com