Category: Poetry Reviews

A review of The Man, the Boy and the Tamarisk Tree by Tess Driver

The poet observes the world around her, creating poems from ‘moments in time’. She could be in Bali, the Serengeti or Argentina.  With vivid descriptions she tells sad stories like the one about a bear in the Albanian border who was abused and starved or the elephants who will die for the ivory in their tasks. Obviously, the poet is an animal lover.

A review of Diving At The Lip of The Water by Karen Poppy

Karen Poppy doesn’t spare the reader of discomfort and grimaces when exploring her identity. She courageously uncovers the secrets of the women in her family, like one who skins the animals in the collection. However, in the last two parts, the poet shows what the healing process looks like and presents us a strong voice protected by the elegance of language, and those extraordinary Voltas at the end of poems.

A review of The Shadow Box by Jean Kent

The poetry is often epigraphed by a snippet from a letter, either from George to Jean or Jean to George, charged by its setting as the characters move from Australia through Gallipoli, Egypt, Paris, and Palestine. The result is a tender ekphrastic that utilises these artefacts: a wedding dress, a hat, diary entries, letters, or a pressed flower to bring the past into the present, connecting the generations.

A review of Called To Coddiwomple by Colleen Moyne

The narrative pieces are well defined and give an insight into human nature, which express an attitude towards life, a way of being in the world. Reading Called to Coddiwomple is an immersive experience which impacts on perception and empathy. The reader feels embraced by the author’s experiences, intimate as well as excited by the new life she embarks on.

A review of Already Long Ago by David Giannini

David Giannini is a wonderful teacher. This is a partial list of the words he taught me: Tardis [sic] (acronym for Time and Relative Dimension in Space), withes (branches of an osier used for tying), gnomon (part of a sundial that casts a shadow), dittany (a bushy shrub), skift (something that is light), sposhy (slushy, dirty, and wet), rivulose (having irregular lines), garth (small yard or enclosure), tohubohu (a state of chaos; utter confusion), and my favorite, mondegreen (a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning.)

A review of Borrowed Words: Cut-up Poems by Peter Wortsman

This poet’s cut-up poems, generated mostly during the lockdown phase of the pandemic, when he felt “cut-off [like a] … modern day monk languishing in the solitude of my cell…” find their roots in Dada poet Tristan Tzara’s méthode découpé, and shares scissors with William S. Burroughs’ cut-up method by which the gunman-junkie-novelist made new poems from old material. Wortsman’s approach differs though from his forbears.

A review of Laughing Matters: Poems with a Wink and a Smile by James A. Tweedie

 James Tweedie is not only a first-rate poet, but is also a musician and composer, which is very refreshing to me, as I am also both a poet and a musician. You can hear the musicality exuding from his poetry. The meter is clean and precise, the rhymes are perfect, rarely slanted, so you get the full effect of the satisfactions inherent in perfectly-executed formal poetry. But it never upstages the humor and wit of Tweedie’s funny perspective, and the results are often quite unexpected!

A review of Standing in the Forest of Being Alive by Katie Farris

Over and over, Farris lightly dances between the doors of this world and beyond, between the possibility of dying, between the possibility of continuing to live, almost daring death, daring the doctor. She continues to give the reader a very candid view of how she copes with cancer, treatment, other people’s views of her, her own sense of loss, America, and her will to live.

A review of a brief letter to the sea about a couple of things by Ali Whitelock

Ali Whitelock’s voice is so distinctive. I don’t just mean her beautiful Scottish brogue, though if you’ve ever heard her read, the richness of that accent will remain with you when you read her work on the page. Whitelock’s voice is woven throughout the work. It’s an immediacy and an openness that makes you feel, when reading her poetry, that you have been friends your whole life and she is not only confiding in you but drawing out of you your own dark secrets so you can laugh at them together.

A review of Chinese Fish by Grace Yee

The book contains lists, poems in two different styles, one style is always in italic and written in a way like if the person writing the piece doesn’t have full command of the English language, the others are normal poems, some of the poems as well as the narrated pieces include some words in Chinese characters. Furthermore, the reader will encounter short dialogues, archival fragments, old policies, lists, eight pages (eight is considered a lucky number in Chinese culture) containing the pictures of a Chinese doll and some political comments.