"Rigor of beauty is the quest." – WCW
Miss Marple gave a tinkly little laugh.‘You’re so severe – of course the weather is a very English subject of conversation – one forgets – Oh dear – this is the wrong coloured wool.’ […]‘Take me back inside,’ said Mr Rafiel. ‘I’ll have my massage now before that chattering hen comes back.’ Presenting herself as…
Accept my body as transgression,My lungs for greed, guts for sloth,My bones for pride, and envy: my loins. Receive my tongue with all itsHoneyed compromise; there will be tears.My skin: confessional, a slate cleaned. This first collection from priest and writer Rachel Mann is filled with rich imagery and visceral language of the body. The…
I needed the God of my childhood to be useful so I folded him, shaped his pages into wings. Cranes at first, then more challenging roosters, swallows, owls. I pinched edges, split clauses to make word plumage. I fractured Leviticus into pleats. […] I bought Reckless Paper Birds, John McCullough’s third collection, after opening it…
The hunt is on: through ashes, photographs and lists, through bone and prayer, through violations – from ‘Utterance’ Jacqueline Saphra’s previous collection All My Mad Mothers, was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2017, and she returns with a stunning companion collection in which it is her father who takes centre stage. The poems…