https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/
Sprung by
Cai Draper
Written
in the first weeks of lockdown in 2020 the strange mixing of emotions
is familiar, life was in lots of ways shut down, and yet there was
also a sense of feeling more alive than had been in years – a
couple of quotes…
“one
of the main problem with being alive
it
that other people accept you more than yourself… 22/04/20”
“...this
is the closest the world has ever seemed to closing down… 2/5/20”
Which
makes us wonder if 2020 and COVID didn’t prompt revolution what
really ever could?
Hey Ho The White
Swan By God I Am Thy Man by Sam
Quill
The
poems are full of literary echoes, some of which were probably lost
on me, but it pushes you into an otherworldly encounter with reality
– to look around you with poetic eyes.
Cancer [+Pop Punk] by Dean Rhetoric
To be able to write about Cancer with a lightness is a great gift –
sharing the rawness of emotion.
The
Nakedness of the Fathers Samuel
Tongue
The
poem Farm Boy is charming, a homeliness and mischievous wink. While
Sauna recounts the equalising nature of nakedness, a “chorus of
wonky bodies”, that is liberating.
She
Shapeshifter by Seanín
Hughes
I
tagged the poems Echoes and Covenant, both have a tenderness and
honesty that is the charm of this pamphlet – a clear sighted look
at the relationship with the body and spirit.
Your
Human Shape by
Matthew Kosinski
Poems
that use a range of unusual forms which add to the sense of
dislocation that many of the themes explore.
Your
Retreating Shadow by
Rochelle Roberts
These are well
crafted poem that have a punch – in particular DWF and Passive
Knife
Edge by
Colin Bancroft
An
exploration of their stabbing these are unsettling poems even as they
help the experience settle.
The
Bare Thing by Len Lukowski
I
put tabs in Anal, which is honest about complex relationship with
that sex, as well as Room World and London.
<boby>of
work</body> by Nóra
Blascsók
Nóra
explores the form on the page as creatively as the words themselves.
Collected Experimentalisms
2001-2004 by U. G. Világos
I didn’t really connect with
what this was trying to do unfortunately.
Omniscience
by John Greening
Playing
off ideas from science and scientists from the past this becomes a
playful collection.
Somewhere,
Looking by Amber Rollinson
Paired
with ethereal photos these poems look intently at the world around
us.
ROB
by Robert Kiely
Moving
between a wide selection of forms which push you to open yourself to
that great range of possibilities.
Calendars
by Andreea Iulia Scridon
Two
of the poems
Imagine
being a tree
people
cutting their names into your flesh
inside
a heart
Confusion
I
thought I heard your footsteps
approaching
closer and closer
but
it was only my heart
beating
against the pillow
Siren
by Gita Ralleigh
Crow’s
True Song
In
the early glint of sun, she caws me awake
from
the mango tree. Old scrapethroat rakes
trembling
air, shirrs green leaves and a stupor
of
sucking bees. She will not quiet her raucous
creak,
nor still curved beak for other’s trilling.
Swooping
too a mirror, she preens her nightglister
wings.
Pecks her image in glass: kiss or sinister
shadow
embrace? Her cry puckers my heart
to
a scar-an ugly cry but true- this song
of
crow, who loves herself. Why can’t you?
The Plum
Review A collection
Responses
to William Carlos Williams’ poem “This is just to say” - from
the tight bounds of that prompt there is a rich and interesting
diversity
I
am the Table by Chrissy Williams
This found poetry from Love Island is playful – could there be
anything in our current cultural landscape further from poetry than
Love Island and yet here we are ...
Commonplace Book by Taylor
Strickland
While it is poetically skilful this
never got me by the scruff of the neck...
