Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Church of Omnivorous Light, Robert Wrigley’s first UK publication, spans a lifetime’s writing and nine collections. At times, I was reminded of the unnerving majesty of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The film opens with a lyrical aerial shot of Montana’s St Mary Lake, which dissolves into a ribbon of road, winding through the dense evergreen forestsContinue reading “Warm Leatherette: Robert Wrigley’s The Church of Omnivorous Light”

When my dad claimed that our cat was a bit stupid, I simmered with fury at his betrayal of a loved family member. Still, he had a point. You see, Stripy Tom did most of his chilling-out in a cardboard box under the kitchen table. An opening cut from it was aligned with a warmContinue reading “Made of Stone – Kay Ryan’s Odd Blocks”

Wayside shrines, flowers strung up on lampposts with a couple of turns of parcel tape, wither and rot but, once memorialized, our Facebook page will stay shiny and new. On anniversaries, the comments posted by friends and family might as well be carved in stone. To see death assume its ultimate place in the timelineContinue reading “Wide Open Space – Vera Pavlova’s If There Is Something to Desire”

Watching horror films, I nestle my tongue into the roof of my mouth for fear of biting it off. Whether the jolt’s caused by the hiss of a pussycat, or an acid drooling alien doesn’t matter: fear grips me. When it all gets too much, I renounce my suspended disbelief by imagining the TV screenContinue reading “Do You Realize?? – D. Nurkse’s A Night in Brooklyn”

It’s difficult to pin down what exactly it is about a George Shaw that’s so disconcerting. At one level, there’s less going on than there ought to be. Where are the people, the traffic, the litter blowing on the breeze? Shaw often works in Humbrol enamel, and anyone who’s made Airfix kits as a childContinue reading “Man in the Mirror – Ben Parker’s The Escape Artists”

‘I am long and pink. At first I am hard but, when you bang me, I go soft’.* I suppose I’d asked for this: my class was studying Sylvia Plath’s Mirror and I’d started with a few fruity Anglo-Saxon examples to grab their attention before asking them to write their own. The student who crafted this memorable little beautyContinue reading “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger – Kevin Reid’s Body Voices”

It was already an alcohol fuelled night when we arrived at Campo dei Fiori‘s The Drunken Ship. I was out with a Roman Catholic seminarian whose groin was in open rebellion against celibacy, and the groin, it was rumoured, was winning. In the time it took me to get the beers in, he had luredContinue reading “I’ll be your Mirror – Liane Strauss’s Leaving Eden”

In the days before mobility scooters, it was the ornaments and the net curtains, running in ribbons along the terraces of St Thomas’ Street, that betrayed the presence of its aged population. Smoke and hops wafted through the gate of the Lion Brewery and over the west of the city, though no-one crossed its silentContinue reading “Town Called Malice – Formerly by Tamar Yoseloff and Vici MacDonald”

It’s just easier to think in shorthand. Certain brands – political, commercial, or artistic, trigger knee-jerk reactions of love, or loathing. And so it was that I entered a MacDonald’s restaurant for the first time since MacBirthday parties. I expected to loathe it, hoped even. The objective was to help some teenagers with Down’s SyndromeContinue reading “Beautiful Strange – Chrissy Williams’ Flying Into the Bear”

When my phone buzzed on that July morning, its screen read SOMETHING’S HAPPENED. DON’T WORRY. I’M OK. The brevity of text messages usually adds to their throw-away quality, but this one might as well have been wirelessed from an ocean liner, holed below the water-line. And the exhortation not to worry? Well, that had meContinue reading “Time of No Reply – Fiona Moore’s The Only Reason for Time”