books

Hugo Williams skilfully uses poetry to convey the experience of recovery from prolonged illness

Jennifer Johnson gives an object lesson in making poetry out of difficult and painful situations

Thomas Ovans browses a short-story collection by John Lucas

Carla Scarano admires the way that Patrick Osada’s poems play with light and shadow

Nick Cooke examines an ambitious biographical poem-sequence by Patricia McCarthy

Stuart Henson enjoys Richie McCaffery’s conversational and sharp-witted poetry – and his knack of crafting a good punch-line.

Angela Topping admires Mark Mansfield’s carefully controlled and crafted poems for their plain speaking

Merryn Williams loves anthologies and finds this collection of travel poems to be a good and inspiring example

Jessica Mookherjee’s collection Flood contains poems so fiercely inventive that “Riptide” might even be a fitting title observes Brian Docherty

Thomas Ovans takes a close look at a collection of haiku by James Roderick Burns

Josephine Corcoran’s poetry succeeds in addressing both actual and imagined experience, observes Emma Lee

Roger Caldwell is intrigued – but sometimes perplexed – by the work of three Finnish poets writing in English