Review by Julie Gardner of "The Stories in Between" by Teresa Forrest

There are twenty-five short poems in this pamphlet; the longest is twenty-four lines. They are written in deceptively simple language - deceptive because, despite their accessibility, the poems, rooted in real people and the landscape around them, are profound and deeply moving. They reward the reader who pays close attention. 

In the first poem, "Almost Home," a mother addresses her child:

  I, your mother, am formed from folklore,
  spit and cabbage. When I made you,
  I hadn’t finished making me. I am so rough
  around the edges.

The shortest poem and one of my favourites (it is impossible to choose just one) is "In Balerin Village." The first two lines focus on a domestic appliance, "The fat-bellied range in my granny’s house" which "works hard / to warm us." But the description of the range is also suggestive of the character of its owner, "Get too close and it warns us with a scalding tongue." 

The poetic skill here is subtle – the rhyming of warm and warn, the connection between scalding and scolding. There is humour too, "Pans hiss with home grown / and, once, a cockerel that had crowed too early for her liking." The reader can be in no doubt that this grandmother is a strong and energetic character, summarized in the fifth line of this short poem which stays with the domestic imagery, "Always the kettle whistles to her tune." But the poem is not confined to the kitchen and the grandmother cannot be contained within its lines, the final two of which expand horizons, speaking volumes about the tender relationship between the narrator and her grandmother and hinting at the stories in between: "Each morning she gives me an orange, / a small globe that feels like the world."

There are other stories. "Pillow Talk" charts the gradual disintegration of a couple’s relationship from "that first moment / of easy laughter, / pillow talk between kisses." There’s the woman who lives "on the Tenth Floor of the High Rise" who has "painted her room the colours of the sun." There’s "Mrs Ritchie" who "carries her anger in a handbag, / worn-out crocodile skin, used to have matching shoes."  

The narrative voice remains consistent throughout the collection, compassionate, observant, respectful and with an Irish lilt. This is an exceptional debut pamphlet and I look forward to reading more from this talented poet.

About the reviewer
Julie Gardner is studying towards a PhD at Nottingham Trent University, focussing on Silence and Voice in the poetry of Vicki Feaver and her contemporaries. He poetry pamphlet Remembering was published by Five Leaves Publishers in 2024.

You can read a review of Remembering on Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Review by Lee Wright of "On Agoraphobia" by Graham Caveney

 

Memoirs rarely make deliberate use of space on the page, but the large areas of emptiness in Graham Caveney’s On Agoraphobia (2022) evoke a sense of unease that mirrors the author’s fear of open spaces, motorways, and crowds. As someone intimately familiar with the vulnerability of vast, public environments, Caveney conveys in his second memoir a sense of being throttled by a thousand invisible hands, each chapter strengthening the grip. The narrative is a belt tightening around the chest, each notch drawing one step closer to madness. 

There is a fraught relationship between the writer and the agoraphobic. Caveney recalls Shirley Jackson—once cruelly dubbed Virginia Werewolf—and her anxiety attack in a New York shopping mall: "She stayed inside. Something new and unpleasant had begun to happen every time she tried to leave the house." 

Art and agoraphobia demand a retreat from the world. Art is created out of a desire to fix, reinterpret, or reimagine the world. The more the world is fixed on the page or canvas, the more jarring and unpleasant the real world may feel to the artist upon stepping outside. Caveney has been battling his condition for thirty-plus years, calling it "a neurotic two-step." His agoraphobia began at the University of Warwick. Mine started while waiting for a bus outside a college in a Warwickshire town. 

He quotes Elizabeth Bowen: "Inside everyone, is there an anxious person who stands to hesitate in an empty room?" I have been that person, and I know others who carry that presence within them. But never before has there been such a deeply personal journey into the empty room as in Caveney’s account. 

To proceed, he has to turn back: "I grew up with a whole mythology of nerves. They had their own poetics. Bad with his nerves, a bundle of nerves, a nervous wreck. Nerves were a site of catastrophe." This anxious life, marked by more than its fair share of catastrophe, has provided Caveney with the material to write books that deeply resonate with readers. We can only hope that Shirley Jackson was right when she closed her diary with the repeated phrase: "laughter is possible laughter is possible laughter is possible." 

About the reviewer
Lee Wright is currently pursuing a PhD. His subjects are memoir, people and place. His work has been published in Fairlight Books, époque press, and Cigarette Fire Literary Magazine. 

Review by Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke of "The Book of Guilt" by Catherine Chidgey

1979, England. It's been thirty-six years since Hitler’s assassination ended the Second World War and a peace treaty was signed that helped fuel great advancements in medical science. In Hampshire, three identical boys—Vincent, Lawrence, and William—wake up every morning at a Sycamore Home and tell one of their three mothers what they dreamt about. Mother Morning writes them down in The Book of Dreams. Mother Afternoon teaches them lessons from The Book of Knowledge. Their sins are written in The Book of Guilt. They rarely see Mother Night unless they are sick. And they are often sick. Dr. Roach prescribes pills and injections to help keep the Bug at bay. The boys dream of the day they will get to join all the other children in Margate—a promised land of performing dolphins and bumper cars. 

In Exeter, Kenneth and Majorie dress their adored daughter, Nancy, in a silvery-green dress that gets tighter every year. Kenneth builds an intricately detailed model railway. Marjorie fills every conceivable space with items purchased from mail-order catalogues. Nancy is never allowed to leave the house. 

The Minister of Loneliness who, herself, seems terribly lonely, is assigned by the Prime Minister to find new homes for the Sycamore boys. The Scheme is coming to an end. Meanwhile, the death penalty has been re-introduced.

Nostalgic references to stickle bricks, fondant fancies, and The Generation Game indicate that this is definitely England in the 1970s, but not as we know it. Chidgey’s novel feels quintessentially British, but this England exists in an alternate political reality. It’s a reality where the state has a God complex, and everyone is dehumanised by mass complicity in the secrets that are kept. The references to Jim’ll Fix It remind us that it’s too easy to turn a blind eye to human cruelty. 

You could compare The Book of Guilt with Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, Never Let Me Go. Sure, they touch on similar themes of medical ethics and nature versus nurture, but Chidgey’s storytelling deserves to be observed without comparison. The richness of Chidgey’s prose and her use of provincial humour amplify the unnerving horror of it all. The slow unravelling of the plot keeps the suspense throughout, giving the reader enough time to think they know what’s going on, before unexpected connections take us to an even darker place. Bold and brilliant, The Book of Guilt deserves to be read and re-read. 

About the reviewer
Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke is a playwright and author, with a penchant for the macabre and a fascination with literary explorations of libertinism, psychopathy, narcissism, and coercive control. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing a Leicester University, exploring Terror Management Theory in relation to representations of cultism and mass suicide.

Review by Iain Minney of "The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham

John Wyndham's post-apocalyptic epic might sound somewhat underwhelming when explained as simply being about "Killer Plants" - especially when they're not even the all-singing "Audrey II" variety, from noticeably more upbeat storytellers. In fact, this particular famished flora is arguably only a bi-product of how humanity has accidentally undone itself in pursuit of advancing science and weaponry. ("A botanical Frankenstein" would, presumably, be similarly too glib and imprecise).

Waking up blindfolded in hospital, Bill Masen finds his daily routine unexpectedly and annoyingly interrupted. He soon learns he's ironically avoided the permanent blinding that affects practically everyone else, following the spectacular comet-shower that transfixed them all the night before.

At first, the blind actually do try to lead the blind, with everyone stumbling about distraught and disorientated. But, after involvement from those both good intentioned and bad, it's obvious the population simply cannot survive the complete and simultaneous breakdown of such a complicated, interconnected society that we all take for granted.

After the disoriented grow desperate, they then disappear entirely as great cities become crumbling ghost towns in the years that follow. Ultimately Bill, his companion Josella Playton, and a few others, must find safe sanctuary for the future of the human race, battling hardships both ancient and new.

Penned in 1951 (eerily pre-dating both satellites AND genetically modified crops) let's just hope no more of Wyndham's Nostradamus-like predictions come true in a world still single-mindedly bent on advancement ...

As well as being top-notch science-fiction, the novel allows the reader to indulge the dual fantasies of invisibly seeing inside a stranger's privacy, and what to pack and prioritize for the end of the world. Above all else, it's a story about preparedness, knowledge, practicality and ultimately, luck. There's also a subtle commentary on class and social standing, hinting at how perhaps this, too, is merely a fragile human construct that could so easily break down under the right conditions.

in the 70+ years since publication, the story's longevity has demanded countless reprints, spawned a number of dramatizations (of varying success) and also directly inspired Danny Boyle's zombie-ish 28 Days Later (2002). In fact, given the biggest threat the Triffids themselves pose is their inevitable recurrence akin to a persistent weed, perhaps this story gives birth to the uniquely English phobia, that gardening may one day set out for revenge.

About the reviewer

Iain Minney (B.A. in Journalism & Creative Writing pending): tall, "mature," sober, comedian(ish). He has dabbled in stand-up comedy - which he has been writing since he was teenager - as well as being involved with comedy sketches, local filmmaking groups and working on local radio for a number of years both as "Head of News" and having his own weekly 3-hour show. He has been interested in writing for some time and even tried recording a number of audiobooks of short stories he's written together with satirical rants based on the standup he never quite "stood up" with. He loves old punk and 80s rock music, all manner of movies, and Bill Hicks and George Carlin SAVED HIS LIFE. But that's a whole other conversation.

Review by Wiktoria Borkowska of "I Who Have Never Known Men" by Jacqueline Harpman

What does it mean to be human when you’ve never truly known another soul? Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men is a quietly devastating dystopian novel that explores freedom, identity, and survival in a world stripped of meaning.

Originally published in 1995, the novel follows an unnamed narrator—the youngest of forty women imprisoned in an underground bunker, guarded by silent men and with no knowledge of how they got there. When the cage doors unexpectedly open, the women are forced into a barren, post-apocalyptic landscape, where the narrator begins a journey marked by loss, isolation, and a quiet longing for connection.

Harpman’s sparse prose perfectly mirrors the bleakness of the setting, yet it’s the narrator’s inner world that carries the emotional weight. Her introspection and resilience draw the reader in, especially as she grapples with the desire to understand a life she’s never truly lived. A fleeting connection with a young guard—one she doesn’t fully understand—captures the human need for touch, recognition, and feeling.

At one point, the women make a harrowing discovery that challenges their understanding of their own suffering and expands the novel’s exploration of isolation, punishment, and shared fate. Rather than provide answers, Harpman leans into the ambiguity, which only deepens the existential questions the novel poses.

Despite its slow pacing, I Who Have Never Known Men is a deeply thoughtful and emotionally resonant read. The atmosphere is unsettling but never sensationalised, and the philosophical depth invites quiet reflection long after finishing the book.

I recommend this to readers who appreciate introspective, dystopian fiction that prioritises emotion and thought over action—and those drawn to stories of quiet female solidarity. It’s a novel that doesn’t shout—but it echoes.

Favourite quote: "We were not who we were because we had lost the world, but because we were lost in it."

About the reviewer
Wiktoria Borkowska is a first-year Journalism student at the University of Leicester. She enjoys reading emotionally rich fiction and writing reflective reviews on a wide range of fiction, literature, and film.

Review by Kathy Hoyle of "Cuddy" by Benjamin Myers

 

Cuddy by Benjamin Myers is a deeply moving, highly original novel. Part historical fiction, part poetic ballad, this novel is dappled with dreamlike prose that takes us on a journey across the stunning North-East landscape as we follow the pilgrims of St Cuthbert from Anglo- Saxon times through to present day. 

This is a work of historical fiction. This is a work of contemporary fiction. It is a poetic ballad, a script, literary prose, a whimsical puzzle, a themed collection. In short, it’s a genre-defying, fragmented-yet-fully-formed hybrid novel … and like nothing I have ever read before. 

During the 7th Century Viking invasions, the body of St Cuthbert is resurrected. An unofficial saint, Cuthbert - renowned for his gentle manner and affinity to animals - is protected by his devoted servants who carry his body around the North-East until his final resting place is found – a hill upon which the mighty Durham Cathedral is eventually built. Cuddy rests, yet his connection to the people of the North-East continues, bringing great strength and comfort, not only to those who seek him out, but also those who unexpectedly find themselves drawn to him. 

Myers is a master storyteller and the collection of ‘voices’ we hear throughout the novel are utterly engaging. Much like a traditional short story cycle, each story has its own narrative arc and can be read in and of itself, yet after reading the whole novel, the themes and connections between the characters all fall into place. With Cuddy as the central focal point, and the beautiful coastal landscape and Durham Cathedral as backdrop settings, Myers exquisitely portrays North-East life. Yet this book is not a short story cycle. Nor is it a novel. It is something wonderfully experimental and undefinable. 

Myers gives a voice to the common folk, those most often eradicated from history – the women, the children, the ones who live on the margins, the ones who need the most comfort from their beloved Cuddy. Myers cleverly focuses on spiritual redemption for his characters rather than overtly religious themes, allowing readers to find emotional resonance with the stories, no matter what their own religious beliefs might be.  

At times, the storylines are brutal and harsh, often tense and strange with moments of great sadness. I had instances, when reading, where I had to pause for several minutes, simply to compose my thoughts and overwhelming feelings, so profound was the effect. 

Imaginative, original, and deeply moving, I adored this ‘novel’ and would urge everyone to read it.

About the Reviewer
Kathy Hoyle is a working-class writer form the North-East. Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as The Forge, Fictive Dream, New Flash Fiction Review and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She holds a BA (hons) and an MA in Creative Writing and is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Leicester.

Review by Kimaya Tushar Patil of "Fourth Wing" by Rebecca Yarros

"A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead."

Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing plunges the reader's mind into the cut-throat world of Basgiath War College, where your only options are to survive or die. The narrative follows Violet Sorrengail, a young woman who has been training her whole life to become a scribe, only to be thrust into the elite and ruthless Rider’s Quadrant of Basgiath War College by her mother, against her own will. In a place built to eliminate the weakest cadets, Violet now faces threats and physical challenges that could claim her life every second of every day.

Albeit physically disadvantaged by her fragile body due to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), Violet’s strengths lie in her observation skills and her ability to think outside the box. This creates a tense atmosphere, and her resilience against all odds and the normalisation of chronic disabilities is relatable and inspiring to many readers. 

This story teeters on the edge of military romantasy with an emphasis on a coming-of-age plotline. The magical creatures a.k.a. dragons are not just portrayed as objects, but as separate, sentient entities with their own private agendas. Rebecca Yarros masterfully wields the power of foreshadowing in her book, keeping the clues subtle enough to be overlooked at first glance, but seeming to fit seamlessly into the intriguing puzzle that is Fourth Wing. Her careful crafting of not just the world, but the characters and the magic-system is nothing short of awe-inspiring. 

This book falls under the new adult fantasy category and is perfect for people who are just beginning to dip their toes into the genre. With its exciting easter eggs, and a consistently intriguing plotline it keeps the reader hooked from start to finish, leaving them wanting more. 

About the reviewer
Kimaya Tushar Patil is currently pursuing a postgraduate Master’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. She is a dreamer, and passionate about reading and writing stories in all forms and genres.

Review by Jonathan Wilkins of "The Dancer from the Dance" by Janet Burroway

I found this an extraordinary book, one that seems to ignore time and could be set in any period but in only one place, Paris. The city is all important, as much so as the main characters. The descriptions of the Parisian world spill out onto the page, the apartment, the park, the house, museum, art gallery. The colours, muted or bright are described in all their glory. Paris is there before us, ready to be enjoyed, to be engaged with and to entreat.

This is first and foremost a love story. For the reader they have to decide whose story. Is it the city's or is it the main character's, the mystical Prytania?

She has descended upon the narrator, Stanford Powers a UNICEF official, via his son-in-law and he introduces her to his work and his family, and he gradually becomes entranced by her qualities, but does he fall in love with her? That to me remains a mystery and another reading of the book may supply an answer.

We do know that an acquaintance, Kenneth, falls in love with her, but then the bewitching mime artist Bernstein, though married, takes her as his lover. She gives in completely to his charms and causes considerable damage through doing this. Anger and resentment and even death follow her like a cloud, but she seems oblivious to this and the feelings of all around her, especially Bernstein’s wife Elena, and a reclusive artist, Riebenstahl. She breaks hearts, ruins lives and does so without a care in the world. This life she leads impinges on all of Powers’ friends and relationships, his work, his wife and his family, all against the picturesque backdrop of Paris. 

Though first published in 1965, the novel has aged well and is contemporary in so many ways as it shows how easily relationships can be built but also destroyed. The intricate networks are described with intimate detail and are joy to read, though also heart wrenching at times. How can one live a life without care and yet damage so much? The reader has to decide, is this behaviour acceptable or tolerable? Do we forgive because of Prytania’s seeming naivete? Who exactly is this young woman and what is Powers' role in this maze of emotions?

A wonderful read is before you. Do take a chance on this beautifully engrossing tale of love in Paris.

About the reviewer
Jonathan Wilkins is 69. He is married to the gorgeous Annie with two wonderful sons. He was a teacher for twenty years, a Waterstones’ bookseller and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years before taking up writing seriously. Nowadays he takes notes for students with Special Needs at Leicester and Warwick Universities. He has had a work commissioned by the UK Arts Council and several pieces published traditionally as well as on-line. He has had poems in magazines and anthologies, art galleries, studios, museums and at Huddersfield Railway Station. He loves writing poetry. For his MA, he wrote a crime novel, Utrecht Snow. He followed it up with Utrecht Rain, and is now writing a third part. He is currently writing a crime series, Poppy Knows Best, set at the end of the Great War and into the early 1920s.

You can read more abut The Dancer from the Dance by Janet Burroway on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Pam Thompson of "Pattern-book" by Éireann Lorsung

 

I first came across across  Éireann Lorsung in Nottingham when she was doing her PhD and was a generous host of poetry events. Since then, I have been enthralled by poems which have sprung up online, via her blog, her multiple passions, and just recently, her postal zine / newsletter. Gentleness, persistence and exuberance are just three of her qualities and all show up here.

Andrew Latimer’s cover design, for this substantial collection from Carcanet, repeats the name of the title in a subtle gradation of colours and which encapsulate its concept. In an interview with Jon McGregor at her online launch, Lorsung says that the colours in the repeated words on the cover are significant for the poems. 

She is avid – about poetry, other artists of all sorts, her people, her places (the English Midlands, the American mid-west, the low country of Flanders) the multiple possibilities of subject and form. Jon McGregor writes a long list of some of Lorsung’s subjects on the back of the book. These are a few of the things that stood out for me: bicycles, rivers, roses, rain, nectarines, ochre, language, parents, students, memory, elegy, frost, gardens, Magritte, poetry, chamomile, learning, brothers, blue, painting, pottery, yellow, tractors, sewing, autumn, fields, fieldfares, art, postcards, gold, sonnets, songs, friends. 

The book is dedicated to Shana, a friend from childhood and threaded through are poems reflecting their growing-up, what is lost and what remains: "When you get this note, it will be // the future … // Friendship is a kind of time-machine, it turns out" ("Postcard to Shana with Photo of Washington Avenue Bridge (Minneapolis)"). 

I particularly loved the affectionate "Postcard to Shana with Drawing of Blackbirds," whose precise sensory imagery of weather, nature and seasons is abundant elsewhere:

          Every warm thing of our girlhood calls us here.
          Blackbirds. Poems. The world: its tablecloths

          and rainy mornings, cities, hands, and flowers.

Lorsung makes everything shine. It all matters, and is worthy of being repeated, just as people’s lives, and memories of such, are enhanced by what has been known many times. 

There is generous love shown towards the ordinary and extraordinary and in finding poetic forms to hold them. The sonnet is a neat container, as in "Sonnet for the Second-Language Speaker," and "Sonnet with a Quotation from Millay," which remembers a childhood friend and what might have been. "Autumn Song" is a longer tour de force where phrases about places, nature, seasons, the body (and more) are shuffled then repeated in different iterations to breathtaking effect. This sounds like a random exercise but I’m certain it was far from it. 

Equally impressive are the sparer fragments  in "Miniscule Sequence" and "Attunement," the latter, being "after Thomas A. Clark":

           gold arrow                                        
           goldfinch
   

           world of ideas
           world of things

There’s so much more to say but I hope this have given some idea of how these poems convey the sheer joy of being in the world and appreciation of its patterns - as Louis MacNeice has written about the world, "The drunkenness of things being various."

About the reviewer
Pam Thompson is a writer, educator and reviewer based in Leicester.  Her works include include The Japan Quiz (Redbeck Press, 2009), Show Date and Time (Smith|Doorstop, 2006)  and Strange Fashion (Pindrop Press, 2017). Her  prize-winning pamphlet, Sub/urban Legends (Paper Swans Press), was published in the Spring of 2025. 

You can read a review by Gary Day of Sub/urban Legends on Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Review by Sally Shaw of "The Two Keisukes" by Brian Howell

The Two Keisukes is written in the third person and printed on cream cotton rag feathered-edged paper. The elongated pages are hand sewn to form a beautiful booklet. This short story is written by Brian Howell, author of several booklets and novels that include Sight Unseen. 

Prior to reading this story I had no knowledge of Howell. The content description provided by the publisher inspired me to read it.

The opening paragraph intrigued me, the words clear and crisp: "He had been here before, no, not here exactly, but then, yes, that building, an old fashioned school building that could have been from almost any period before or after the war."

Howell writes with such precision and beauty. I felt the wonderment he holds for the man, Keisuke Kinoshita, whose identity is given halfway through the story.

The story takes place on an island and yet the reader is made aware of the possibility that it’s being viewed from a distance or on the margins of time. The reader is taken from the shore of the island into a wonderland of past, present and unknown. Keisuke walks through alleyways and corridors, taking in the sights and sounds filled with the forgotten waiting to be rediscovered: "Walking further to the edges of this large park-like area, he saw a very curious group of turquoise sculptures that was both painfully familiar and yet unidentifiable."

Throughout his wanderings of the island, buildings and alleyways I’m drawn to him, I like Keisuke - both of them. I form an insight as to where each Keisuke is, one on the island, the other between the island and somewhere else. Floating in the past, present and unknown, in my mind I have ideas, two to be exact. I won’t say anymore as this would spoil Howell’s story. I will say, that through reading Howell’s words I formed the opinion that Keisuke and the others named were indeed real people (I had no prior knowledge of the Japanese film industry and history), and I sensed the history and connections between them all. I visualised what was possibly happening to the two Keisukes, felt the emotions and the power of recall and realisation of life. The ending touched my heart in a non-sentimental way. 

Around the two Keisukes Howell provides a portrait of the culture and history of Japan and the enchantment of the Japanese film industry. I read this booklet over and over again, each time discovering something new. I have started to research the individuals within Howell’s story, such was the energy of the writing. This is magical storytelling of a country, people and industry I knew nothing about, but now I want to get to know them and read more of Howell’s stories.

About the reviewer
Sally Shaw has an MA Creative Writing from the University of Leicester. She gains inspiration from old photographs, history, childhood memories, and is inspired by writers Sandra Cisneros, Deborah Morgan, Liz Berry and Emily Dickinson. She has short stories and poetry published in various online publications including The Ink Pantry, AnotherNorth, Roi Faineant Press. Sally lives in the countryside. 

Review by Rachael Clyne of “maybe i’ll call gillian anderson” by Rhian Elizabeth

If I find myself reading a collection from cover to cover in one go, it’s a sign of enjoyment. I relate to Rhian’s witty and conversational style and admire her honesty about her shortcomings, which she does with flair. The title poem opens the book with her daughter leaving home: "sometimes i find myself standing / in the empty room, screaming: / alexa, what the fuck am i meant to do now?" The shock lifts the lid on her own Pandora’s box of youthful chaos and disastrous liaisons – a familiar journey to me. The poet does not shrink from sharing her dysfunctions and excesses and finds herself becoming a single mother aged eighteen. Although hard, it provides an anchor for her love. It seems a stable relationship is beyond reach, as in her poem "lobster" in which a lover tries to engage her in a conversation about the soul: "i felt like a lobster drifting / in a restaurant tank / watching you popping / the champagne / while i waited to die." The book carries a tone of unfulfilled longing and wading through broken glass. The poet’s use of "i" as her personal pronoun hints at an incompleteness of self.

Inevitably, a daughter cannot permanently fill the gap, which the poet must learn to fill with herself. Gillian Anderson is a fantasy crush, representing a longing to be made beautiful by love. Fantasy can get us through, but will not heal us. Perhaps finding ways to love and forgive our brokenness is what makes us feel beautiful. I enjoyed Rhian Elizabeth’s first book, girls etc, but this new collection digs deeper. Rhian’s self-exploration in maybe i’ll call gillian anderson is a milestone on that journey and her generosity is a gift to those of us on the same quest. 

About the reviewer
Rachael Clyne is a retired psychotherapist. Her first collection Singing at the Bone Tree (Indigo Dreams) concerns eco-issues. Her latest collection, You’ll Never Anyone Else (Seren Books), explores themes of identity and otherness including, migrant heritage, LGBTQ and relationships.    

You can read more about maybe i'll call gillian anderson by Rhian Elizabeth on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Gary Day of "Sub/urban Legends" by Pam Thompson

Brilliant, disorientating, splendidly polyphonic: these poems provoke, puzzle, baffle and delight the reader. Each one bears re-reading, not least the title poem, ‘Suburban Legend.’ Its zigzags, elisions, and turbo-charged imagery are typical of the volume. Everything is happening at once and at speed. The reader is not sure of their bearings or of what’s happening. Is a cooker being dumped or being used to make a meal? Who are the characters and what is their relation? The man is ‘the scourge of our town’ but there’s clearly more to him than that. The imagery is partly cosmic ‘I identify Venus, lucid tonight’ and partly quotidian ‘just a sponge and soapy water.’ The diction is a heady brew of the earthy, the enigmatic and the arcane. How often do you hear the word ‘brumous,’ meaning foggy or wintery, these days?

‘The Keys’ should be anthologised in any future volume of British twenty-first-century poetry. It is situational, symbolic and finishes with a wonderful shift that makes the poem just soar. ‘My Life as a Bat’ has a mysterious sub-text. Revenge against a former lover? Difficult to say, but it is extremely well wrought and humorous as well as sinister. The image ‘ricocheting in a cave’ conveys both fury and despair. ‘Reading my mother’s diaries’ is one of the most poignant poems in the collection. The last line is just beautiful. 

There is a lot going on in these pages. The search for something beyond the obvious in ‘An afternoon’; the relation of art and life in ‘Fête Galante’; the eerie atmosphere of ‘Explorers, Antarctica,  1901’;  and the soothing blues of ‘the evening garden.’ Throughout there is a sense of broken things that can’t quite be put back together, and the poems invite the reader’s to help join the fragments

About the reviewer

Gary Day is a retired English lecturer. He has had poems published in Vole, Ekstasis, Acumen and The Dawn Treader. His 'Anne Bronte's Grave' was highly commended in last year's Artemesia Poetry Competition.

You can read more about Pam Thompson's Sub/urban Legends on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Amirah Mohiddin of Joanna Nadin’s "Birdy Arbuthnot’s Year of 'Yes'"

Joanna Nadin’s Birdy Arbuthnot’s Year of 'Yes' is an evocation of coming-of-age in the 1960, following Margaret (later known as Birdy) Arbuthnot on her journey to the secret of living with a capital L. It is a novel filled with vividly rendered, eccentric and true-to-life characters.  

Birdy has always rued her fate of living in Surbiton, a suburb in the Southwest of London, far from the excitement of Soho. She knows there must be so much more to life than retaking the Cambridge entrance exams and being an unpaid receptionist to her father’s dental surgery. Determined to make her life more novel-like, Birdy vows to say 'Yes' to every opportunity and chance that comes her way in the new year. So, when given the chance to move to the heart of London, Birdy ventures forth on a new adventure meeting fantastic and fascinating characters each more vibrant than the last. 

Some of my favourite sentences include: '… I’ll never see Charlie again. And oh! I do so want to see her, to be in her orbit. What a girl— no, a woman, she is! A walking, talking exclamation mark! I am not sure what that makes me. Something innocuous, like a comma, perhaps. At best, a semicolon or rogue apostrophe.' 'And I know, too, that I am an exclamation mark. And that this, all of it, is Life with that capital L.'

The pages of Birdy Arbuthnot’s Year of 'Yes' are filled with Birdy’s distinct narrative voice. Nadin captures the voice of a young woman in search of her place in the world in the first few sentences. This voice leaps off the page, almost as if coming to life. Across the novel, we see Birdy going from perceiving herself as 'something innocuous, like a comma' to realising that she, too, is capable of being an exclamation mark. Her journey of striving for independence, growing in confidence and recognising her own worth is beautifully poignant. Birdy’s arc across the novel follows her interactions with the new people she meets: Charlie (later known as Charity), Cal, Rollo, Ted, Val, Aster. Together, they form a found family of sorts, each going through their own transformations thanks to Birdy’s actions as 'Little Miss Fixer.' 

Overall, I really loved the wit, humour and heart packed in the pages of Joanna Nadin’s Birdy Arbuthnot’s Year of 'Yes'. It’s a true masterclass in writing a strong, distinctive narrative voice. 

About the reviewer
Amirah Mohiddin is a published short story writer and an educator of Creative Writing. She has recently passed her practice-based PhD reconstructing female storytellers from Arabic Literature in a young adult fantasy novel. Her short stories have been published in magazines, ebooks and physical books, including Dancing Bear Books, Litro Magazine, Post-mortem Press, The New Luciad and Sanroo Publishing. Her novel, Devoured by Stories, is currently represented by agent Leah Pierre of Ladderbird Agency. 

You can read more about Joanna Nadin's Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of 'Yes' on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Penny Walsh of "Moments of Grace: Creative Non-Fiction and Poetry by Scriptorium Writers and Guests," ed. Fiona Linday

This anthology is nicely written and set out, along with the intermittent photographs and art to accompany the works. It is an ideal book if you have only a few minutes to spare a day and want to read something, for each contribution is short. 

I am sure that those who have faith will find something in it for them and enjoy the messages being put forward. 

About the reviewer
Penny Walsh lives in Lincolnshire and is a debut author with her middle-grade children's story Prince Percival's Pesky P.A.N.T.S! of which she has a second instalment manifesting. Penny is also writing a memoir about her journey and battle with severe Endometriosis and IVF, the prologue of which was published in two anthologies Venus Rising and Good Girl, Bad Period.  She has had articles published on Medium.com, was commissioned to write a poem for a local event, and has had a short story published in the anthologies Family Matters and Making Our World Better (both of which were part of the University of Leicester's Attenborough Arts). 

Review by Harry Whitehead of "Syllables of the Briny World" by Georgina Key

Georgina Key’s Syllables of the Briny World offers a poignant and vivid magical realist evocation of Hurricane Ike’s devastating rout of the Texas coastline in 2008. But the book is about more than simply the catastrophe that claimed nearly two hundred lives. It is a novel about relationships. 

Pete is an alcoholic, washed-up fisherman incapable of straightening out for long enough even to spend time with his children, his divorced wife having given up on him long ago. Izzie is eighteen, struggling to come to terms with her queer identity, an unsympathetic mother making her life miserable as she traverses the complexities of her first relationships. Agnes and Earle are retired, upright pillars of religious and moral fortitude. Clementine and her friend Dorie both lost children and are struggling to emerge from grief alongside fallible, if well-meaning, men. And Clementine can see the dead. After her boy, Finn, drowned, she wandered the shoreline trying to reclaim him from the Sea-Mother, hearing his lost voice in the wind and the waves. Now, just as the storm approaches, she sees a ‘Lost Boy’ on the beach, who leads her to her son. No one, least of all her husband, believes her. The Lost Boys, meanwhile, have their own agenda.

The novel gently charts the resilience of the people who inhabit the thin strips of land along the Gulf of (yes!) Mexico, land destined ultimately to be reclaimed by the sea. An environmental novel, then, certainly. But its green credentials are ever-so-delicately woven through the gripping interplay of the various characters' lives. We witness both tragedy and hope unfold amid the ferocious drama of the real events of Hurricane Ike. Highly recommended.

About the reviewer
Harry Whitehead is a novelist and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Leicester where he directs the annual free literature festival, Literary Leicester. His new environmental thriller, White Road, is out in September from Claret Press.

Review by Rennie Parker of "Saltburn" by Drew Gummerson

Drew Gummerson is evidently a writer from the "more is more" school of creativity, like a speeded-up Dickens with additional body-parts. If the phrase can be made more inclusive, with ideas springing off from ideas like a hi-energy trampoline school, you can bet this author will be on it. For example, he need not say that the University holds its Innovation Fair in the "hired-out" waiting room of the railway terminus, for the simple reason that it must be hired out if it is normally the waiting room, but does it matter? No, because the story rushes on to the next gleaming sentence and the hired-outness serves to illustrate how triple-layered everything is in Saltburn-world. 

Everyone here is on the make. If it moves, you sell it or hire it, because otherwise someone will be selling or hiring you instead. And underneath the relentless bonhomie there's a current of barely suppressed rage at how society has turned out. For example, there's a boardgame comes with "bonus points for disposing of homeless people or setting fire to food banks," although the game itself is based on the 1970s hit "Mousetrap," judging from the description. So it's something nostalgic and sweet, followed by something that kicks you where it hurts; Gummerson knows how to deal both sides of the coin. And he's not bothered whether you find his characters pleasant or not - the somewhat off-colour second son of the glove manufacturer is the sort of person who'd be best avoided on the train, and his eventual paramour Captain Nemo could have done better, methinks.

I loved the evocation of a rundown seaside environment, because we've all been to a version of these places, most likely on a budget childhood holiday. It's the world of McGill postcards garnished with Gillray sentiments, and it's resolutely set in the past, no doubt to encourage our belief in some of the magical-realist events and allegories. If the pricing is judged around the newly decimalised coinage in 1972-73 and all the older ladies look about as appealing as Ena Sharples, it's not so surprising to find a mermaid at work in the penny arcade and to discover that the local nuclear reactor is powered by ex-pit ponies. It's safely in the past, where anything can happen. Sometimes, I feel the author writes things just because he can (for example, his intonation shifts unexpectedly into a hardboiled American phase at one point) and maybe there's an added homage to one of his literary heroes. I'm enjoying the ride, but I would like to see what happens when Gummerson harnesses his writing elan to something where he isn't burning through his subject matter at such speed.

However, don't do what I did and return to the book after a few days away. I've got too many questions. Why is this character collecting underpants? Why is Sven called Sven? Have I missed something? Why does everyone have a Binatone TV? And even though the New Puritan Party attempts to ruin everyone's lives, even if your guesthouse is nightly paraded-past by convicted penitents on their knees, there still might be too many bums and willies for some readers. I suspect I'm not the ideal reader Gummerson was thinking of when he wrote -  or rather, ran gleefully after - this book. The imagination behind this must look like Dinsdale's Joke Shop in the Hepworth Arcade in Hull. I've never read anything like it. And you won't either, which is why you should hie down swiftly to the nearest not-mega-retail-outlet and book an excursion to this most unusual resort. But don't be fooled by the cartoon framing, and be aware that some of the images might be close to the bone.

About the reviewer
Rennie Parker is a poet living in the East Midlands, and she is mostly published by Shoestring Press. Her latest collection Balloons and Stripey Trousers, a nightmare journey into the toxic workplace, came out earlier this year. She works in FE and blogs occasionally here. She is also on Twitter/X and Bluesky.

You can read more about Saltburn by Drew Gummerson on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Jonathan Wilkins of "Wild Boar" by Hannah Lutz, trans. Andy Turner

Ritve is looking for wild boar.

Glenn is looking for happiness.

Mia is looking after her grandfather who is suffering from Alzheimer’s.

All are living by the forests of Småland in Sweden.

The forests of this Småland are home to a growing population of wild boar that were once on the verge of extinction. Ritve is searching for them, but never seems to have any success in finding them. He sees their destructive nature and chases sightings, but to no avail. Why is something so plentiful continuously out of his reach, but seen by so many others?  

Mia wants her grandfather to remember his past, but continually fails even though she has brought him back to his childhood home. Her love and devotion towards him are clear, but it makes no difference. Age has taken its toll and it can never be reversed.

Glenn is an ordinary man with simple ideas and tastes who just want to be happy. He has found his love and his true nature. But will it be enough? His job is only a means to an end. He does not relish it, but he does seem to welcome life and wants to get more from his surroundings and relationships.

Wild Boar is narrated by three very different characters who have come from afar to the isolated community of Småland.

Wild Boar is a poetic masterpiece about animals and people and their different places in a destructively changing ecosystem. The denouement of the book is tragic and compelling as we are shown than none of us can escape the world in which we live. It will take its toll.

Written beautifully, and translated with what we can only assume is infinite care, Wild Boar looks at our past and our future, the planet's past and future and, in the end, it doesn’t appear to hold out much hope for our future.

About the reviewer
Jonathan Wilkins is 69. He is married to the gorgeous Annie with two wonderful sons. He was a teacher for twenty years, a Waterstones’ bookseller and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years before taking up writing seriously. Nowadays he takes notes for students with Special Needs at Leicester and Warwick Universities. He has had a work commissioned by the UK Arts Council and several pieces published traditionally as well as on-line. He has had poems in magazines and anthologies, art galleries, studios, museums and at Huddersfield Railway Station. He loves writing poetry. For his MA, he wrote a crime novel, Utrecht Snow. He followed it up with Utrecht Rain, and is now writing a third part. He is currently writing a crime series, Poppy Knows Best, set at the end of the Great War and into the early 1920s.

You can read more about Wild Boar by Hannah Lutz on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Colin Dardis of "Boy, Mother" by Caroline Bracken

Winner of the 2024 Poetry Business International Book & Pamphlet Prize, Boy, Mother is a sequence of poems exploring a mother’s relationship with her son, who has a long-term mental illness. However, this is not just the typical unconditional familial love of devotion and sacrifice. Rather, Bracken displays the interplay being the wellbeing of mother and son, as set up in the opening poem, "Amor Matris": "Some / children / are easy / to raise … // Some / mothers / are easy to love," going on to give the exceptions of herself and son. We see this uneasy symbiotic relationship throughout the work: "he gains ten pounds    you lose ten," "both he and you will be judged," "I carried him under my skin for 293 days safe in amniotic fluid." The mental wellbeing of one is wholly reliant on the other: the mother to know that the son is safe and well, and the son to have his mother fight on his behalf for access to care and the safety of home.

"Admissions" catches the interminable horror of hospital waiting rooms with wry observations: "greasy Hello magazines show Princess Diana alive … a half-full water cooler   no cups." We find similar trivialities in "Black Coat," where the mother frets over the suitability of a coat to be worn to her son’s possibly impending funeral. The mind goes to curious places in times of stress, but to hint at such whimsy in times of suffering without underplaying the suffering itself is remarkable writing, reminiscent of David Sedaris or Henry Rollins.

A number of poems are set in admission areas, anonymous waiting rooms, even police stations, Bracken expertly capturing both the clinical boredom of inactivity and the uneasy anticipation of bad news. Constantly, we are reminded of the mother’s helplessness, her sanity at the whim of a medical examination or a police search.

          A stranger will tell me
          he is either dead or found
          I have rehearsed both
          during six weeks
          of fluid dread
          ("Ballast")

Where these poems excel is that, although obviously written after the event, the reader feels right alongside the mother as she waits for the news, any news, sharing her concern and her fears. "Eyewitness" and "Mental Health Act" dissect and distil each action and thought slowly, drawing out the gamut of feelings and sensations, allowing space for the reader to enter the thought process.

Judge of the Poetry Business prize Jane Clarke, in her blurb for the collection, notes the collection's "innovative poems," although there is little that could be considered as breaking new poetical ground. Bracken prefers extra spacing between words or line breaks to do the work of commas and semi-colons; at times, punctuation is dispensed of altogether, causing a double-take in the reading of some lines that could have benefited from clearer intervals. To be generous, such form could be said to be representative of the frantic minds of both mother and son, where in the moment, thoughts and expressions are not precisely and neatly expressed, but tumble out in a cacophony of worry or illness. However, at times, the omission inhibits rather than elevates the writing.

The collection’s closing poems shift away from the turbulence and trials of disappearances and medical interventions to something more akin to normalcy: a shared coffee in a cafe, a trip to Marks and Spencers, the mother showing her son how to construct his hair into a man-bun. All of these little events are shown to be hard won, even fraught – "your leg shaking my hand shredding napkins," or the marvelling of the son successfully navigating a self-check out with ease by the overly-anxious mother – but come as blessed reprieve after the early tribulations.

Admittedly, this reviewer is not a parent, so outside of these poems, it would be hard to imagine the natural concerns and heartache that a mother or father may go through with a child. However, it is testament to the willingness of Bracken to be open and shame-free in sharing her concerns that Boy, Mother makes it a little easier for this reviewer to envisage such. Overall, this is another fine collection reflective of the usual high standard from the Poetry Business, and one to be sought out by all.

About the reviewer
Colin Dardis is the author of six poetry collections and four pamphlets, most recently with the lakes (above/ground press, 2023) and What We Look Like in the Future (Red Wolf Editions, 2023). A neurodivergent poet, editor and sound artist, Colin is co-host of the long-running open mic night, Purely Poetry, held in the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, and editor of the poetry blog, Poem Alone.

Review by Gary Day of "Nothing Louche or Bohemian" by Tina Cole and Michael W. Thomas

It’s an interesting title. One that turns its back on the sordid and the unconventional but what does its face toward? The answer is local social history. This is very much a volume of people and places that the authors have known. 

Tina Cole and Michael Thomas are too experienced to fall prey to nostalgia or sentimentality. Instead  we are treated to a series of poems that are clear-eyed, gritty and authentic. Cole's "Intoxication" acknowledges the continuing lure of the artistic world while being wise enough to know that poetry only flourishes if it remains close to its roots. Thomas achieves a similar effect in "Sally Riordan." 

Both poems exemplify how each poet riffs off each other. The result is a beautifully textured collection, full of vivid evocations of characters, scenery and a vanished way of life. An example is Thomas’ "Unmapped." A once well-known landscape has become strange to itself and those who used to walk its ways. Memory is in danger of disappearing. The language of the poem is representative of the volume in its precision and invention: "tree-tops net the seasons / in stars of summer blood / and Christmas pearl." Cole’s "Local Vagrant: Dudley 1960s" is equally arresting, the subject's frailness brilliantly and economically conveyed by the phrase "knitted shoulders" while his position on "the ledge of what is now and what / was then" could serve as an epithet for the entire selection. 

There’s an element of Lennon and McCartney in the poems of Cole and Thomas; the same eye for the telling detail and a feeling for the oddness of the ordinary. There are also strains of lyricism but these are kept in check and are felt all the more poignantly for that. The fusion of personal life and social history makes this an unmissable read.

About the reviewer
Gary Day is a retired English lecturer. He has had poems published in Vole, Ekstasis, Acumen and The Dawn Treader. His "Anne Bronte's Grave" was highly commended in last year's Artemesia Poetry Competition. 

You can read more about Nothing Louche or Bohemian by Tina Cole and Michael W. Thomas on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Claire Cox of "Dear Life" by Shanta Acharya

As Maggie Nelson writes in On Freedom: ‘The question is not whether we are enmeshed, but how we negotiate, suffer and dance with that enmeshment.’ The conundrum of how best to live a life bounded by deep pain on one side and soaring rapture on the other lies at the heart of Shanta Acharya’s latest collection Dear Life. From its beguiling front cover – a ghostly blossom, ambiguously emerging or receding in the gloom – this collection grapples with archetypal concerns of light, darkness and exquisite beauty. The author’s elevated yet earthly contemplations on mortality loom large from the first poem ‘Being Alive,’ with its description of undiagnosed disease and resultant physical and spiritual pain, to the final eponymous poem ‘Dear Life,’ in which the struggles and wonders of living are said to exist within the independent agency of the author’s own words. 

Unafraid to explore the inevitable elements of suffering we encounter almost daily, Acharya probes the lived realities of solitude, grief, heartache and dislocation with startling imagery. Physical, emotional and spiritual sensations in ‘Loneliness’ are likened to ‘menacing lions,’ ‘blister packs of agony’ or a ‘professional assassin.’ The devasting loss of her brother, Susanta Acharya, forms a complete section of its own. Here, the terrible storm that overtakes us as we accompany a loved one through their final days – the assault on belief, grief’s uncertainty and the arbitrariness of loss, are articulated with aching self-awareness. Yet, even in such a raw, depleted state Acharya's imagination and luminescent cosmology enable these poems to vibrate with a wonderment for life. The omnipresence of love, divine and familial, is fixed as the ultimate universal truth despite the difficulties of holding on to that faith in the most testing of times; times that give rise to the hardest questions:  

          … Is life a series of random outcomes?
         And we humans here merely to add meaning?

         If there’s a force for truth and justice, enlighten me
         so I may make sense of this unbearable darkness of being? 

However, in this paradigm of mortality’s most profound challenges, Acharya is not without wit and effervescence. ‘Dressing Up In Lockdown’ is a sumptuous reminder of the beauty of levity. A celebration of incandescent bounty, revelling in for-best saris, jewellery and perfume, this sonnet radiates joyous indulgence and acts as a shimmering bubble, glistening and fragile in the face of enforced isolation. This sonnet is also an example of the impressive level of formal awareness that is evident throughout the collection. In addition to being one of several sonnets in Dear Life (indeed the second section of the collection is composed entirely of six sonnets), ‘Dressing Up In Lockdown’ shows examples of the particularly deft use of enjambment that serves to propel the writing and add a frisson of revelation at line-break level. Examples here include: ‘lounging / in pyjama and dressing gown,’ ‘of not being / touched’ and ‘Unable to ignore their / pleas.’ As a technique, enjambment is used to great effect not only across the collection’s line breaks but also operates across stanza breaks with confidence and panache. This from the couplets of ‘Afterwordsness’: 

          … Setting up
          home beyond the seven seas, building bridges in space 

          and time, I keep an open house, furnish it with song – 
          invisible guests come in and out it will.

Also of note is the collection’s use of repetition, most evidently in the extensive use of the ghazal. As a form traditionally associated with the expression of physical and spiritual love and longing, it is a particularly apt vessel for the thematic ruminations that run through this collection. The ghazal, with its repeated end word or phrase, enables a multi-faceted exploration of key philosophical considerations. Looking at some of the ghazals’ titles, which also serve as the repeated end word - ‘Secrets,’ ‘Find Me,’ ‘Existed,’ ‘Change,’ ‘Solitude’ and ‘Exile’ - gives a sense of the collection’s underpinning concerns. In a formal development, the poem ‘If’ also uses anaphora’s repetition at the start of each three-line stanza, in addition to epistrophe at the end of each tercet, which repeats the phrase ‘we would not exist.’ The regularity of this pattern throws into high relief its sole variation, that of the last tercet, which creates an abrupt and portentous shift:

          If greed and ignorance, pride and power
          stand in the path of enlightenment and realisation– 
          we will cease to exist. 

Again, in ‘Grant Us’ the repetition of the phrase ‘Grant us the wisdom’ at the start of each four-line stanza enhances the earnest prayerfulness of this poem and serves to illustrate the interrelationship between theme and form that is so intricately crafted across this collection.  

At its strongest when engaging with the nuance and possibilities of the lyric voice, Dear Life also includes empathetic forays into adopted persona and accounts of parallel experiences. In ‘Allepo, My Allepo!’ it is the beleaguered city that speaks. In ‘She Remembers,’ Hindu epics are revisited; ‘The Tree Huggers’ narrates a bloody incident in Indian history. Culturally eclectic, spiritually profound, this collection is equally adept at drawing on Catholic, Islamic, and Hindu traditions as well as classical mythology and Greek tragedy. The result is a deeply textured, deeply considered, and deeply felt exploration of and for humanity. Perhaps the most enduring truth within this expansive yet intimate collection lies in the poem ‘We Are All Returning.’ Written in memory of the author’s brother, it resonates powerfully in its universality: 

           The most revolutionary thing one can do in the worst 
           of times is to live and love to the best of one’s ability. 

Here is wisdom, hard won and transcendent.

About the reviewer
Claire Cox is co-founder and Associate Editor of ignitionpress, winner of the 2021 Michael Marks Publishers’ Award. She has a PhD (Royal Holloway) on poetry and disaster. Her poems have appeared in Primers: Volume Five and other magazines and anthologies. Claire was also the winner of the 2020 Wigtown Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize. 

Review by Peter Raynard of "Year of the Rat" by Charles G. Lauder, Jr

Dual heritage poets often explore the meaning of home, as a way of understanding their life. Lauder did this most eloquently in his debut collection, The Aesthetics of Breath. Originally from San Antonio, Texas, he now resides in the English countryside, where home and family are central to the poems in his pamphlet, The Year of the Rat.

A domestic scene is set in the opening poem (an ode to piano makers, ‘who were once all over London, names no one remembers’), as the family is getting new piano, a pre-loved baby grand, ‘as if finding a lost soul a new home.’ And there are other poems of everyday life with the accident of an elderly grand/mother, ‘your eyes and forehead red from kissing the floor,’ and the wonderful final poem, ‘In search of silence’ (yes please), with its rhyming couplets and Lauder’s skilled employment of the viscera that surrounds them:

         like a chrysalis or fox carcass,
         their creaking, crying cranes to swallow
         me within the hedges tender shadow
         layered in ash leaves and badger shit.

I guess one thing the bucolic and city environments have in common is the preponderance of rats (poor Birmingham, in the UK). Emily Dickinson referred to the rat as the ‘concisest tenant, who pays no rent.’ A bit like my adult sons. The Chinese calendar’s Year of the Rat describes the mammal as quick-witted and resourceful, and that is certainly the case with Lauder’s experience of them.

In the eponymous eight-poem sonnet sequence, we see ‘one large and one small / shield beneath gunera leaves / take turns / dashing for the tub of duck pellets.’ The comparison between city and country rat is summed up by Lauder as ‘country rats / are more genteel than their city cousins // they’re not in an alley biting through bags of rubbish.’ Their resourcefulness is evident in the ‘maze of tunnelling stretching / between the boiler house and oil tank.’ 

Having watched Lauder read at his launch, I know his poetry (and life?) is informed by Daoism. There are two touching poems from this belief system about his love for his wife and his family. ‘You are the Sun / radiating high overhead // I am Pluto / of the far, cold / surrounding edge.’

The final couplet of the pamphlet sums up this country life: ‘Here pheasants will build a nest / and wait and wait for the world to change.’

I must give a final nod to the publisher Blueprint Press. Based in the North East of England, they are a pamphlet publisher, showcasing poets between collections, and have already put out work by Fran Lock and W. N. Herbert. The pamphlets are beautifully produced in a minimalist style, so more power to them.

About the reviewer

Peter Raynard is an independent researcher, poet and editor of Proletarian Poetry. His three books of poetry are: Precarious (Smokestack, 2018), The Combination: a poetic coupling of the Communist Manifesto (Culture Matters,2018), Manland (Nine Arches Press, 2022). A debut pamphlet (a heroic crown of sonnets), The Harlot and the Rake: poems after William Hogarth, was published by Culture Matters in September 2024.

You can read more about Year of the Rat by Charles G. Lauder, Jr, on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Lee Wright of "On Writers and Writing" by Henry James

The essays featured in On Writers and Writing span fifty years and include Henry James’ short reviews, obituaries, reflections on the works of other writers, and a few personal statements of principle. In these writings, he offers insights on both how to write and how to read. Edited and introduced by Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Gorra, this collection reveals how James honed his skills as a critic long before establishing himself as a novelist. The essays underscore the importance of criticism in shaping a writer’s craft. James critiqued the mistakes of his predecessors, hoping that by learning from them, he might one day get it right himself. 

In the opening essay of the book, "The Art of Fiction," Henry James uses English novelist Walter Besant’s lecture of the same name as a starting point for his own reflections on the art of fiction and argues that literature should either instruct or amuse. He does not mention Shakespeare, though, who challenged and delighted in equal measure, albeit not in novel form. There is an essay included on The Tempest in the latter stages of the book, though it stands out as one of the drier pieces in the collection. A more engaging piece is his review of Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, in which James describes it as a work "lacking in inspiration" and remarks, "For the past ten years, it has seemed to us that Mr. Dickens has been unmistakably forcing himself. Bleak House was forced, Little Dorrit was labored, and this current work feels as though it has been dug out with a spade and pickaxe." 

With the same metaphorical pickaxe, the then 22-year-old James continues, "It were, in our opinion, an offence against humanity to place Mr. Dickens among the greatest novelists. For, to repeat what we have already intimated, he has created nothing but figure. He has added nothing to our understanding of human character. He is master of but two alternatives: he reconciles us to what is commonplace, and he reconciles us to what is odd. The value of the former service is questionable; and the manner in which Mr. Dickens performs it sometimes conveys a certain impression of charlatanism."

The harshness of James’ language and the sweeping nature of his criticism are like the sting of a hornet. He doesn’t simply critique Dickens’ work; he almost entirely dismisses it as lacking genuine literary depth. He also calls George Eliot’s Middlemarch "One of the strongest and one of the weakest of English Novels," going on to argue that Eliot’s ambition is commendable but ultimately flawed: "The author wishes to say too many things, and to say them too well; to recommend herself to a scientific audience.” In 1885, George Eliot’s husband, John Walter Cross, published a semi-autobiographical work using extracts from her letters and journals, which Henry James later reviewed. James movingly notes that the letters and journals "are only a partial expression of her spirit." Another comment, though, seems to view womanhood primarily as a biological or physical condition, disappointingly implying that female authors, in general, may have inherent limitations or constraints due to their biology. 

Nevertheless, each piece evokes the sensation of sitting by the fire with James—a man shaped by his own greatest creation—breathless, just as his unnamed narrator is in the prologue of The Turn of the Screw. Not a word is spoken until the storyteller finishes reading the manuscript. At that point, we can choose to agree or disagree with the master.

About the reviewer
Lee Wright holds an MA in Creative Writing and is currently pursuing a PhD. His fiction and nonfiction have been published in Fairlight Books, Headstuff.org, époque press, and Cigarette Fire Literary Magazine.