Poetry review – HOUSE WORK: Pat Edwards finds honesty and directness in Khadija Rouf’s poems
year 2023
Poetry review – LOCAL INTEREST: Pamela Johnson examines a collection in which Emily Hasler immerses herself and the reader in a landscape and its history
WORDS & PICTURES: Thomas Ovans views some intriguing video poems created by Rosemary Norman and Stuart Pound
Annie Get Your Gun. Review by Barbara Lewis. Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business” is the perfect opening for a show and especially for the inaugural show at the Lavender Theatre on Epsom Downs.
Paula Rego: Crivelli’s Garden. Review by Graham Buchan. Two years ago Tate Britain mounted a major retrospective of Paula Rego’s work and it was a great exhibition. Now the National Gallery shows a single piece of Rego’s work, albeit a big one: Crivelli’s Garden is nearly ten metres wide and two metres high.
Poetry review – NIGHT LOGIC: Charles Rammelkamp reviews Matthew Gellman’s poems exploring personal and family memories
Poetry review – BY THE WAY: Michael Paul Hogan considers a collection of haiku by Kevin Bailey
Poetry review – TAKE CARE OF YOUR HOOVES DARLING: Pat Edwards is struck by the originality of this new pamphlet by Laura McKee
The Wind and The Rain. Finborough Theatre. Review by Barbara Lewis. A wistful story of Edinburgh medical students tussling with exams and affairs of the heart was one of the biggest international hits of the 1930s and a staple of British repertory theatre for decades after.
Candide, WNO. Review by Barbara Lewis. Too messy, too long, too anti-Semitic, too misogynistic: there are many reasons to avoid Bernstein’s Candide. And yet, director James Bonas and the Welsh National Opera bravely make a powerful case for staging this attack on the depravity of those in power and the futility of war.
Poetry review – IN ORBIT: D A Prince is intrigued and even unsettled by the way Glyn Edwards deals with themes of grief and love
Poetry review – CALLIGRAPHIES: Norbert Hirschhorn is full of admiration for Marilyn Hacker’s new collection
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, year 2023 • Tags: books, Norbert Hirschhorn, poetry