Poetry review – ENGLISH LAUGHTER: John O’Donoghue finds hope in the humour and fair-mindedness that Alan Morrison perceives as being vitally English characteristics
history
Poetry review – STILL LIFE WITH APOCALYPSE: Charles Rammelkamp is grimly fascinated by Alan Catlin’s poetic reporting of multiple disasters
Poetry review – HERE & THEREAFTER: Lucy Winrow admires a poetic exploration of family history by Alice Miller
Poetry review – SEANG (HUNGER): Belinda Cooke reviews a moving account by Anne Casey describing a people’s displacement and ill treatment
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
Poetry review – ARRIVING BAREFOOTED: Stuart Henson enjoys a collection by Gwen Williams which deals with 19th century attempts to establish a new homeland for the Welsh in Patagonia
Poetry review – THE ALDERBANK WADE: Nick Cooke considers a Civil War ‘novel in verse’ by Alan Morrison
Connected Worlds of Bruges. Review by Barbara Lewis. As part of the constant flow of luminaries in and out of the cultural and commercial hub of 16th-century Bruges, Henry VIII sent Thomas More there in 1515 as part of a diplomatic mission to settle trade and financial disputes. His visit to Flanders was also when More began his classic work “Utopia”.
Metamorphoses. Review by Barbara Lewis. The final word of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” is “vivam”: I shall live. It was prophetic. More than any other poet, Ovid lives on as a muse to fine artists to this day.
Poetry review – SONG OF THE YELLOW ASTERS Charles Rammelkamp reviews a moving and important posthumous collection by Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, translated from the German by Carlie Hoffman
Poetry review – FROM THE EAST: Peter Ualrig Kennedy is impressed by the clever cadences of John Greening’s poetry in this volume
Fatal Monsters. Review by Barbara Lewis. Cleopatra VII was not just the Egyptian queen and legendary lover of Mark Antony, immortalised by Shakespeare, she represented the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty that endured from 305 BCE to around 40 BCE.
By Barbara Lewis • books, feminism, history, year 2026 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, books, feminism, history