The back cover of Polly Atkin’s Shadow Dispatches lists eleven competitions she has variously won, placed in or been shortlisted for – and that’s not counting the Mslexia pamphlet competition in which Shadow Dispatches itself scooped first prize. In all, an impressive twelve awards referenced on one book cover. Although this isn’t a guarantee that the poems inside will be good (some of the poems that win competitions are wonderful; others are wonderfully well-adapted to winning competitions), it does raise serious expectations. And Atkin doesn’t disappoint. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: October 2013
Through a Lens, Brightly
Now that this week’s Jericho Tavern extravaganza is over and I have a lull before next week’s Derwent Poetry Festival, I wanted to take the opportunity to catch up on a couple of belated posts.
A few weeks ago Matthew Stewart released a film version of Tasting Notes, his short pamphlet of wine-poems. Continue reading
Heard Melodies
I’ve written before about poetry as an art made from sound, and much of the past few days has been alive with the sound of poems. Continue reading
Next week’s poetry reading
I’ve spent the weekend re-visiting the most recent collections by the six poets who’ll be reading next week in Oxford, on Tuesday 22nd October at the Jericho Tavern (full details here).
