The Gun
Bernard Green offers another of his distinctive reminiscences about his early life in post-war Surrey. .
history
The Fire
Bernard Green has already given London Grip readers his memoir of Alf’s Café: here now is his “prequel” about dramatic incidents in Farnham in the 1940s…
Letter from North Manchuria – Out of his Struggles: the poems of Kosuke Shirasu
Brian Docherty comments on political poems from pre-WW2 Japan by Kosuke Shirasu which have recently been republished in a bi-lingual edition by Jun Shirasu and Bruce Barnes
Alf’s Café
A memoir by Bernard Green tells the story of a transport café over sixty years before and after World War two.
London Grip Poetry Review – Laycock
Nick Cooke is impressed by the authenticity of Stuart Laycock’s collection of poetry from the Bosnian War
London Grip Poetry Review – Gebbie
Nick Cooke explores Vanessa Gebbie’s poetic tribute to battle victims of World War One
100 Dutch-Language Poems
David Cooke applauds the efforts of Paul Vincent & John Irons in selecting and translating an anthology which spans 1000 years of Dutch poetry
London Grip Poetry Review – Hill
Thomas Ovans acknowledges the work and the craft that has gone into Alison Hill’s poetic tribute to women pilots of the ATA
Digging up Milton
Jennifer Wallace has used some scraps of historical fact and a good deal of lively imagination to build her new novel set in 18th century London
The Atomium, Belgium, by Barbara Lewis.
What exactly is the essence of Belgium? Far harder to pin down than French chic or English sang-froid, the nation’s uneasy mix of Walloon and Flemish, surreal and down-to-earth, all miraculously held together, is perfectly encapsulated by the Atomium – a giant, futuristic structure on the northern edge of Brussels.
Using Poetry To Open Up The Past
Chris Beckett is enthusiastic about poetry’s potential for exploring and explaining family history and cultural roots – and finds examples in recent collections by Nancy Mattson and Anne Ryland
Anything Can Happen
A New Life for the Riding-Crop-Handle Maker; Sarah Lawson reminds us of a popular account of an immigrant’s experience which has – perhaps undeservedly – fallen out of the public eye