Spring 2012

Editorial by Colette Bryce, Poetry Editor
Margaret Thatcher, the once unlikely muse of a generation of British poets, is currently being portrayed on our cinema screens in tragic decline..

Poems

Julia Copus
Ghost

Sam Riviere
Dream Poem • Personal Statement • The Clot

Ciaran Berry
Whitman, 1863

Jane Hirshfield
Zero Plus Anything is a World

Jane Hirshfield
In My Wallet I Carry a Card • A Cottage Cheese Sandwich

Kim Moore
Suffragette

Michael Symmons Roberts
The Offset

Michael Symmons Roberts
The Others • Antarctica • On Grace • Derivatives • Face to Face

Emily Berry
Zanzibar

Kerry Hardie
Two Funerals

Sarah Kirsch
Trees

Sarah Kirsch
Angels

Amanda Dalton
Feral

Adam Day
A Plateau of Excellence

Fred D’Aguiar
Yesterday’s News

Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch
In My Arms

Peter Daniels
Being English

Greta Stoddart
The Curtain • And Here You Are • Neuroblastoma

Fran Lock
from The Mystic and the Pig Thief

Andrew Jamison
BALLS

Kathryn Simmonds
Self-Portrait with Washing-up Glove • The New Mothers

Leanne O’Sullivan
Argos • Valentine

Vicki Feaver
The Witches • Fur

Reviews & Features

Walking Around an Enigma
George Szirtes on Tomas Tranströmer, the latest Nobel Laureate

Removing the Labels
W N Herbert finds the real worth behind Luljeta Lleshanaku, Gjertrud Schnackenberg and Daljit Nagra

Truth and Dare: An Interview
Kathryn Maris talks to Christopher Reid on the publication of his Selected Poems about his willingness to ‘try anything’

Love Letters and Public Functions
Helen Mort on laureate poets: Duffy, Lochhead and Ryan

The Modernist Imperative
Peter Robinson on John Ashbery’s Rimbaud

Ingenious Devices
Jane Yeh on first collections by Nerys Williams, Will Eaves and Ahren Warner

Snow Burns, Tongues of Fire and the Hippo Chop
David Wheatley on Lavinia Greenlaw, Tim Liardet and Isobel Dixon

In Our Time and In Good Heart
Bernard O’Donoghue on John Burnside, Leontia Flynn and Justin Quinn as poets of our time

Self-consciousness or Simple Ceremony
Declan Ryan on pamphlets and shorter small press collections