Poetry review – BEAUTY & ASHES: Nancy Murphy admires Karen Warinsky’s poems both for their honesty and for their hopefulness
year 2025
THE KAFKA STUDIES DEPARTMENT: Charles Rammelkamp discovers that Francis Levy’s generally bleak story lines can provoke a surprising amount of laughter
Billy Wilder & Ernst Lubitsch. Review by Alan Price. Without Ernst Lubitsch we wouldn’t have had a sophisticated American film comedy that drew upon a cosmopolitan culture and in particular a vanishing memory of Viennese society. And therefore maybe a different Billy Wilder style.
THE RESEMBLANCE OF ALL THINGS: Michael Bartholomew-Biggs grapples with Bernard J Lurie’s ambitiously conceived long poem which speculates on the fundamentals of creation
IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE: Charles Rammelkamp follows Tom McAllister’s life story as summarized in a sequence of 42 essays
The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show. Review by Barabara Lewis. The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show is a mood-enhancing, life-affirming start to the day – and after an 18-year run at the Edinburgh Fringe and an 11-year absence from Brighton, where it began, it is back on the English coast.
Nocturnal Journey. Review by Barbara Lewis. Detachment from time and space are the hallmarks of Hans Op de Beeck’s meticulously crafted art, which arguably make it fitting that he has never had a complete exhibition of his work in his native Belgium – until now.
Throne of Blood. Review by Alan Price. T.S.Eliot rarely went to the cinema. However in 1957 he did see Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood and called it his favourite film (though I’ve not been able to trace Eliot’s announcement back to any interview, letter or newspaper article).
Poetry review – FANCY THAT AND OTHER POEMS: Chris Beckett clearly enjoys the light-hearted sexual frankness in John Dixon’s poems but finds serious insights as well
Books of Hours, Books of Hope. Review by Barbara Lewis. If, like me, you need a reminder of the definition, a book of hours is a devotional manual designed for personal prayer.
Peter Grimes. Review by Barbara Lewis. In difficult times, it would seem, people crave total escapism – or deep catharsis from confronting our own failure as humans and society.
Poetry review – BURNTISLAND: Colin Pink reviews a collection in which Ian Farnes reflects on the history of his own small home town
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, history, poetry reviews, year 2025 0 • Tags: books, Colin Pink, history, poetry