Poetry review – CROSSING THE HINGE : Nick Cooke praises Mandy Pannett for scrupulously avoiding dishonesty and self-deception in her poems about the challenges facing our world
Poetry review – DREAM LOGIC: Vanessa Napolitano is enthusiastic about a debut collection from Satya Bosman
British Landscapes. Review by Barbara Lewis. In the depths of World War Two, the British government funded a project called “Recording Britain” that commissioned artists to capture landscapes and buildings at risk of disappearing.
Rinaldo. Review by Barbara Lewis. Handel’s Rinaldo, the first Italian-language opera created for a London audience, was an 18th-century hit about love, war and redemption. It was written at speed and performed with lavish special effects at a time when tales of crusading knights filled the popular imagination.
Poetry review – PLYMBRIDGE: D A Prince reviews a collection by Anthony Wilson which draws together memories from different times, making some sometimes surprising connections
Poetry review – TIGRESS WITH WINGS: Sue Wallace-Shaddad is impressed by Rupinder Kaur Waraich’s vivid poems on growing up within Indian culture
Poetry review – LIES BLURRING HERE: Nick Cooke looks at a new collection by Adam Piette which is concerned both with the search for clarity and the avoidance of it
Poetry review – AS GRASS BECOMES FLESH: Colin Carberry explores the complex poetic world conjured by Michael Lee Rattigan’s imagination
Rose of Nevada. Review by Alan Price. A young two-man crew, with an elderly sea dog of a captain, take to sea on a fishing trip in the economically poorer present. They achieve a good catch but on return are time-slipped back to their Cornish village as it existed thirty years previous, when the community was financially prosperous.
Poetry review – TRACKS IN SNOW: Charles Rammelkamp sees past the superficial assessment that Thaddeus Rutkowski’s poems are light and understated
Dido and Aeneas. Review by Barbara Lewis. Singer and director Marcio da Silva opens his version of Purcell’s only fully sung opera with a request that the audience vote on who takes the role of Dido. It felt at first like a gimmick, at odds with high tragedy, and yet it takes on a serious purpose: we, like the gods, or the fates, or Purcell’s witches, are the arbitrary deciders of one human’s destiny.
Poetry review – SIGNALS TO THE DISAPPEARING SHORE: Kate Ashton is moved and impressed by these poems in which Aidan Semmens confronts dark episodes in world history, both past and present
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • added recently on London Grip, books, history, poetry reviews, politics, year 2026 • Tags: books, history, Kate Ashton, poetry, politics