* This issue of London Grip New Poetry features poems by: *Teoti Jardine *Carol DeVaughn *Michael Lee Johnson *John Snelling *Robert Nisbet *Louise Warren *Jennie Christian *Ricky Garni *Kate Foley *Christopher Mulrooney *Ian C Smith *Shanta Acharya *Jennifer Johnson *Ruth Bidgood *Robert Chandler
Rosie Johnston is pleased to find both a sense of the dramatic and a feeling for the past in this first collection by Jean Watkins
Emma Lee finds Maria Jastrzebska’s memory-poems both personal and inclusive.
Thomas Ovans is very grateful to Paul McLoughlin and Shoestring Press for republishing some of the best work of the poet Brian Jones.
Fiona Sinclair reviews a new collection of short stories by Maria McCarthy, finding them both harrowing and hopeful.
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
D A Prince considers how well Sheila Hillier has risen to the challenges of following up a successful first collection
Norbert Hirschhorn finds a strong and distinctive voice and character running through the new collection by Jackie Wills.
Merryn Williams finds that John Mole’s new pamphlet convincingly captures the experience of being seriously ill in hospital
Rosemary Norman describes how she collaborates with video-maker Stuart Pound to make films from her own poems.
Thomas Ovans tries to keep up with Mark Gerchick’s comprehensive analysis of the airline business which explains why and how the glamour of flying has now been reduced as much as the legroom in economy class.
Thomas Ovans discovers warm, positive and life-affirming poems in Heart Archives.
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, Year 2014