Review by Jessica Mookherjee of "Darling Blue" by Sarah James

Darling Blue is a poetry collection that creates its own world. We follow a woman through galleries and paintings, gradually discovering who she is and what she is doing in this world of art galleries, secret trysts and obsession with a man whom she names Blue. Paintings become ways of understanding what she cannot understand directly. We begin, as she does, to search for Blue everywhere.

Halfway through the first section of Sarah James’s Darling Blue, I realised I had been reading it wrongly. I had been judging the poems one by one: some I admired, others seemed more conventional, accomplished ekphrastic poems. But suddenly I found myself wanting urgently to know what happened next. I was reading a poetry collection as if it were a novel. And that was when I understood: the collection is the poem.

James is particularly good at allowing later poems to alter the experience of her earlier ones. The book is a palimpsest: meanings are written over but never completely erased. Walter Crane’s Neptune’s Horses recurs throughout. Initially its untameable horse offers an exhilarating image of freedom. Later, after the narrator admits that she failed to escape Blue’s grip, the same image cannot mean quite the same thing. By the time she becomes "More Than Neptune’s Horse," we’ve travelled too far with her to accept untameability quite at face value. In that way, the collection itself becomes an artwork.

The narrator repeatedly understands herself, only to understand herself differently several poems later. She leaves her younger self behind, then acknowledges: "I am no longer her, / and yet, part of her is still me."

Looking is one of the collection’s central actions. James’s narrator doesn’t passively describe paintings; she interferes with them. She wonders what their women are really thinking and questions the stories art history has given them. In If they looked more closely, Waterhouse’s Juliet is no longer necessarily dreaming of Romeo. Her blue necklace can be "clutched / and fingered," but beneath it is the woman’s own "unquenchable" redness. Gradually a colour grammar develops. Blue is the lover, but also something unknowable; red belongs increasingly to the narrator, full of body and appetite.

As we read the book, it begins to teach us how to read it. It’s an elegant lesson in what a whole collection can do, rather than simply being a series of competent or excellent poems. Darling Blue gives us ekphrasis, yes, but as an act of creating a woman’s inner life: we want the paintings to decode her. Then there are prose-poem heartbreaks when reality crashes in, and the epistolary poems addressed to Blue. These three registers - ekphrasis, prose poem and epistolary - become part of the narrator’s own construction. 

I came to trust the narrator’s contradictions. She stops writing to Blue, then writes another letter. They feel less like unreliability than the ordinary instability of the stories we make about our lives.

Another theme is power. The power relations are complicated. Blue has the wife, home and public life, while the narrator receives fragments: hotel rooms, disappearing messages, postcards from paintings they have seen together. In one of the saddest passages, she arranges those postcards in her flat: "A collage of our time / together, without us in it."

Yet she is not simply Blue’s victim. She looks at him, anatomises him, makes him into material. "In my head now, at least, I make him my muse instead," she says in the poem "Questions."

There are revelations about who she is which make the construction of the collection suddenly feel inevitable. I don’t want to give too much away, but her relationship with art is more than that of an interested observer. Meaning accumulates in the spaces between artworks. The collection is also an exhibition, and we walk through it with her.

The later poems deepen the book considerably. Blue begins to disappear. Blank space appears, and so do a son and another man. In "A father," love consists of wiping noses, holding sick bowls, scrubbing vomit and helping with homework: not romantic spectacle but attention and repetition. In "Unstoppable," the narrator turns from paintings "behind glass / and framed with dead wood" towards her living son, whose eyes contain "whole worlds / which haven’t yet been painted."

But James doesn’t make domesticity the cure for dangerous passion. In "Before something burns or bursts," after John Collier’s Priestess of Delphi, the woman is again incandescent, surrounded by red, suspended in "all / possible futures." By now the intensity that once seemed to belong to Blue looks as though it may always have belonged to the narrator herself.

Near the end, "Restoration" gives us the narrator at her most knowing. Paintings fade; restoration uncovers details but cannot return an artwork to its original state. "Some loves can live on, undamaged, beyond their initial context,” she concludes, “but it takes more than just a shared passion."

In the final poem, "My last unsent letter," Blue is summer sky, lake and sea, shared now with the man with whom the narrator has made another life. But I don’t entirely believe her, and I don’t think the collection requires me to. "I still carry a small flame of you with me," she admits. Even the title "My last unsent letter" makes "last" feel provisional. Which of us has been left untouched by the people we have loved?

Then comes one of the book’s most satisfying returns. Up close, blue is "distance’s illusion." The sea that Neptune’s Horse appeared to drink at the beginning was never something that could be swallowed or possessed.

So Blue does not disappear. Nor does the woman who wanted him.

I finished the book thinking about the whole thing rather than individual poems: about what had happened to me as a reader while moving through its paintings, and how differently I understood the first pages by the time I reached the last. The collection is the poem. And it is a very good one.

About the reviewer
Jessica Mookherjee is the author of three poetry collections with Nine Arches Press, Flood, Tigress (shortlisted for Ledbury Prize) and Notes from a Shipwreck. Her fourth collection Universe is an Animal is due for publication in November 2026 with Nine Arches Press. She’s also the author of Desire Lines (Broken Sleep Books). She works in public health and lives in Kent. 

Review by Mike O'Driscoll of "In the Garden" by Brian Howell

Like the central figure of Hieronymous Bosch’s triptych on St Anthony, the protagonist of Brian Howell’s In the Garden is subject to his own mix of erotic and demonic temptations. In what the publishers term a plaquette, traditionally a small bronze relief, but here a chapbook illustrated with reproductions from Bosch’s work, Howell explores both the meaning and effect that the artist’s works, particularly those of a more apocalyptic bent, might have on the viewer. Anthony, our not entirely reliable guide to the paintings, a self-confessed Bosch fanatic, has come to the artist’s home town of  ’s-Hertogenbosch for a rare exhibition of his work. For reasons that remain obscure, Anthony has left his wife and daughter, Angela and Helen, at home in the UK, though he’s at pains to assure us that he has their blessing, if it’s what makes him happy. This last comment hints at Anthony’s need to justify the pursuit of his own interests, interests that are not as purely artistic and intellectual as they first seem. 

On his first encounter with one of the works—The Wayfarer—Anthony has a sort of premonition, "a shimmer of light whose provenance he could not explain," that gives him the permission he needs to stray from his purposeful travels and sink "into a hedonistic stage of life." An accomplice toward that stage appears in the form of Lajla, an expert on Bosch. She offers Anthony a glimpse into the possibilities inherent in The Garden of Earthly Delights. The world of the painting stands in contrast to the mundane, sexless reality of his life with Angela, though his nightly phone calls to her, as well as specific memories which prompt moments of guilt, appear to contradict this interpretation. His supposed surprise at Angela calling him "lover," doesn’t exactly sit with his self-depiction of their relationship. 

Through keenly described scenes from different works, Howell returns again and again to contrasting what Anthony tells us about himself, with a recognition of the more earthly desires that the paintings prompt in him. Lajla, who, because of her preoccupation with the Cathars, one might expect to be sexually reticent—she makes a point of telling Anthony of their disapproval of sexual congress—responds to his latent desires by drawing him into a world where he can indulge both his pleasures and pains. The quiet, understated ending finally allows the protagonist the first real moment of insight, albeit one that comes too late. 

In the Garden follows on from Howell’s superlative collection The Study of Sleep, in exploring the work of specific painters to illuminate the struggle between our desires and delusions, and the contradictions between our false self-perceptions and those moments when we get to see ourselves as we really are.

About the reviewer
Mike O’Driscoll is a writer living in Swansea. His work has appeared in Black Static, Interzone, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and numerous anthologies. His story ‘Sounds Like’ was adapted for a TV movie by Brad Anderson, as part of the Masters of Horror series. Mike blogs on different aspects of genre writing and film here. 

Review by Rennie Parker of "The Point of the Stick" by Neil Fulwood

Here is one of those unclassifiable pamphlets which makes perfect sense when you think about it. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? Take any number of conductors - magnetic figures all - encapsulate their style, their motivation or their hallmark, and present them as a sequence where the reader can guess who it is. Art as an enigma, much like the alchemy of conducting itself. You can read the unnamed stanzas in Neil Fulwood's nifty little collection, and check your answers at the back of the book, like any good test paper. I scored four and I'm disgusted with myself; maybe I am listening to the wrong recordings, but I enjoyed the guessing game nevertheless.

Of course we do not learn overmuch about the conductors as they march past - the poems are between eight and twelve lines, so the poet has to hit the ground running with a bijou design of those dimensions. What we have are lightning sketches, illuminating without becoming cartoonish. Judging by the correct four guesses, the pictures are accurate too: for instance, there are films of Adrian Boult wielding his trademark 'billiard cue,' and he was as sparing in his gestures as the poem implies, 'deployed with a slight / supple turn of the / wrist.' I like how 'wrist' is separated from the preceding line, emphasising the clean gesture. The collection is full of expert touches like this, the 'punchline' exactly situated, the felicitous phrase which brings the portrait alive.

There are references to war-torn countries, driven individuals rebuilding themselves, and the conductors as self-made people as well as media stars - familiar enough ideas when it comes to international artists, but relayed here in Fulwood's uncluttered and direct manner with not a word wasted. Each segment dovetails in with its neighbours so well that there is no 'odd one out,' which sometimes happens with a sequence. I would have welcomed a couple more lines for each conductor, because I was interested to know more about them - but it was not part of the poet's design; and anyway, that's what biographies are for.

The Point of the Stick may sound like a niche pamphlet but in fact there is a wide audience who would love this collection. Instrumentalists, concertgoers, choir members and Radio 3 listeners could all benefit from finding a copy in their birthday envelopes. Better still, it's so pocket-sized you can take it with you to a marathon recital and read it during the interval. As a concept album, it is small and perfectly formed. Go, little book! I am posting my copy to a pianist friend who will appreciate both the poetry and the subterranean references to complex lives and their overwhelming dedication to music.

About the reviewer
Rennie Parker's latest collection is Balloons and Stripey Trousers (Shoestring, 2023). She was born in Leeds but lives in south Lincolnshire, and currently works for an FE college. Blogs here, daily nonsense on Twitter @rennieparker.

You can read a review of Balloons and Stripey Trousers on Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Review by Gary Day of "God's Little Artist" by Sue Hubbard

It’s not often that a poetry book comes complete with an introduction and notes but both do sterling work in providing a context for these poems about the life of the artist Gwen John whose achievements have been somewhat overshadowed by those of her more famous brother Augustus. 

Sue Hubbard brings her characteristic empathy and inventiveness to bear in telling John’s story from her life in Tenby, to her time at the Slade, to her move to Paris with Dorelia McNeill, on whom she may have had a crush, and who later lived in a ménage à trois with her brother and his wife Ida Nettleship. Gwen had to model to earn money and Hubbard concisely and dramatically evokes the humiliation such work could involve: ‘insolent hands on her small breasts.’   

The majority of poems in this splendid collection concern Gwen’s fateful relationship with the sculptor Auguste Rodin who was 36 years her senior. The verse pulls no punches in its evocation of desire: at one stage I had to loosen my collar. Hubbard is no less deft when it comes to conjuring the agony of being displaced by another in the affections of the beloved. One of her many gifts is to present love in the round, how it can abase as well as elevate: ‘she wants only to button his boots.’ 

After her affair with Rodin ended, John threw herself into her work. ‘The Poetry of Things’ is one of the standout pieces in the volume where ‘clouds of spray’ become ‘strings of prayer beads / lucent as benedictions.’ Art and religion offer a way forward for the broken self ‘only paint and prayer / can offer salvation.’ 

With its wonderfully glowing imagery this is a work to be treasured. 

About the reviewer

Gary Day is a retired English lecturer. He is the author of several books including The Story of Drama: Tragedy, Comedy and Sacrifice from the Greeks to the Present. He has also edited a range of books including two volumes on British Poetry in the Twentieth Century. His debut poetry collection, The Glass Roof Falls Like Rain, is due to be published by Holland Press later this year. 

Review by Rosa Fernandez of "The Mask" by Elisabeth Horan

‘A celebration and [a] tribute’ is how the author describes The Mask, a collection of nineteen poems directly inspired by the paintings of Frida Kahlo (and a guide to which ones is helpfully included). The mask of the title itself refers to a specific painting and one that sums up the whole concept of the collection: a self portrait where Kahlo’s face is hidden and yet still full of emotion. 

The poems in this collection are all spoken by the imagined voice of Kahlo and have a flow to them that feels like the brush in her hand, sweeping her feelings onto canvas. The voice is direct and powerful and peppered appropriately with Spanish, ‘somehow separada’ and ‘into the rear of el restaurante’ where we can understand more than we think about Kahlo’s world in the writing. You don’t need to see the paintings to get the imagery; in ‘Nectar of the Gods and a Woman’s Throat,’ the animals, her face and the thorns are all described and weighted with meaning.

I really enjoyed the knowingness and humour of this imagined Kahlo, and the witty double meaning of ‘stanza’ in ‘The Mask, Vol. 1’ was a wonderful poetic highlight: ‘I’ve told Eli to make a new stanza,’ the poem ending with the spectacular line ‘Come and f*** me in my mind.’ The respect that the author has for the artist is evident and this poetic tribute is eloquent and sensual throughout, without shying away from Kahlo’s pain or rage.

Sensitive readers may query the fearless language throughout, but Kahlo was a unique individual with an unflinching perspective on the world, and it feels authentic. This collection is as colourful and vivid as its inspiration and can be enjoyed as both enjoyable poetry and as a companion to some fascinating paintings. 

About the reviewer
Rosa Fernandez is a slam-winning poet and sometime proofreader. She also enjoys wearing silly hats. 

Review by Tracey Foster of "Fan-Peckled: Twelve Old Shropshire Words in Poems and Pictures" by Jean Atkin and Katy Alston

The smooth, matt cover of this illustrated book of poems gives a hint to the landscape of texture within. The onomatopoeic sounds of gates closing with a ‘clicket’ and footprints tramped through ‘slud’ echo through the lanes, hedges, skies and streams of these old paths. We get to feel the earth between our very fingers, ‘grey clay marbled with yellow’ as it ‘clarts’ up behind the heavy horses’ hooves. We feel the warm air of long summers past as the red kites take to flight ‘like a loaf rising,’ and we watch field furrows, dreaming of ‘the golden rustle of next summer’s wheat.’

Katy Alston’s grainy pencil sketches, splashed with wet tints, sit beside the words and capture images of a Shropshire past: narrow barges, shire horses, dappled undergrowth and red kites overhead. She uses a muted pallet to convey a disappearing pastoral life, as beautifully described in 'Noon-spell,' where a resting labourer, watches the sunlight on the cobbles:

          How the sun, in an odd trick,
          is spelling time to turn 
          a man from cartwright to mechanic.

 

The native dialogue is annotated with simple footnotes that explain the colloquialisms, giving us a deeper understanding of the poems, which were originally inspired by The Shropshire Word-Book: A Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words (Georgina F. Jackson, 1879). This is an exercise in keeping alive our ancient words, much championed by author Robert Macfarlane, who advocates the retelling of our forgotten lexicons - ‘language is fossil poetry’ - and who would no doubt applaud this exercise. 

Twelve expressions taken from the Word-Book are the starting point for the poems:

• Buts and Feerings - a number of furrows ploughed onto the land
• Lady-With-The-Ten-Flounces - a child’s term for a goldfinch
• Clicket - the fastening of a gate
• Fan-Peckled - to be freckled
• Keffel - a worthless horse
• Talking to Moments - mumbling to yourself
• Geolitudes - a burst of temper
• Shalligonaked - a useless, thin overcoat
• Glid - term for the Red Kite
• Noon-Spell - a labourer’s lunch time
• A Corve of Oddlings - a wicker basket of many things

 

From Fan-Peckled:

         Last night there were the speckled lakes
         On a sickle moon not watched
         Nor wished upon through glass.

         Then morning fetched a dot-dance in the woods
         Of deckled oak leaves and the bee-pad
         Footfalls, pollen-tickled, in the foxglove.

A collaboration of poet and artist, this is a lovely collection that is a timely diversion from modern problems and will apply a balm to the mind, through language, image and texture.

About the reviewer

Tracey Foster has been teacher of Art and Design in schools in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland for over 40 years. She took part in the Comma Press short story course in 2019 and had a short story published in a collection, Tales from Garden Street. She had a poem about Covid published by BusPoetry Magazine and has since commenced an MA in Creative writing at Leicester University. 

Review by Annalise Garrett of "The End" ed. Ashley Stokes, featuring paintings by Nicolas Ruston, and stories by various contributors

It is inevitable that there will be a moment in our lives where we will think the end is near, whether the thought is triggered boarding a plane, watching a loved one die of old age or an accident, or even those close calls that make you question how you survived such an event. Fifteen Endings to Fifteen Paintings is a project by Nicolas Ruston to explore how an art form can operate through different media, as described in the introduction of the book The End, edited by Ashley Stokes. The book consists of fifteen interpretations by writers who have chosen one painting each by Ruston. Each painting is ambiguous with few hints towards the genre of the short story that follows it. 

Every chapter captures the emotional response of its writer, inspired by a black and white etching by Ruston. ‘The End’ is first seen as a large, dominating white text situated in the centre of each painting, and is also the central theme for the fifteen narratives that follow each painting. Fifteen detailed, uncomfortable, thought-provoking narratives present a multitude of emotions. Some paintings are much clearer than others in that they present us with a familiar object, hinting what the story that follows will entail. Each painting is then crafted into words, as it were, to arouse feelings of anxiety, or nostalgia in the reader, or even perhaps to draw the reader into the writer’s paranoia and vision of ‘The End’.

There, of course, are chapters you connect with and are more drawn to than others – paintings and stories that speak to your unconscious mind, your own anxiety and experience with more power than others. There were times where I felt suffocated, uncomfortable when reading certain stories. The stories vary in style and content. The power behind chosen sentence structure and word choice changed my mood and at times I had to put the book down to walk away for a moment before returning to complete the story. Even now I am reminded of the stress I felt on one particular interpretation of a painting. Each story, each memory presented a new thought, a new location, a new passage to the end of something, whether it is life or opinion, whether it is the narrator’s life or someone they are observing. Something ends, even if it is the fictional story itself.

On finishing each story, my attention was drawn back to the beginning of the chapter – the image of ‘The End’. At times the first few lines of a story directly connected image to text, or sometimes it was the final sentence or idea, or even the story as a whole. Back and forth I flicked from painting to word, from chapter to chapter; I sometimes understood the connections, and sometimes I was so caught in the narrative I forgot the painting. There are recurrent themes – such as reference to someone dying, something or someone leaving, or even a habit abandoned. In this way, the reader is teased by the notion of the end throughout. I felt a constant anticipation to find out what will end, who will end and even why.

When each story ended I found myself back to comparing the painting to the words, or the memory, the narrative, the character or setting. Stokes is right in saying the book never ends and you will re-read it: I have read it twice and I want to read it again. When walking in the street or around the house I picture my surroundings like the painting, a black and white etching telling me a story, an end; I text my family and friends more often now than before. The End: Fifteen Endings to Fifteen Paintings made me think about my situation, my thoughts, and I hope others look at these painting by Ruston and their interpreters’ stories. 


About the reviewer
Annalise is a student in her third year at the University of Leicester, studying BA English. She is currently on an Erasmus year abroad at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Outside of her studies Annalise paints and writes as a hobby, hoping to use her degree to work towards a career within the art industry.