Poetry review – CONSTRUCTING A WITCH: Nick Cooke is impressed by Helen Ivory’s energetic and zealously defiant poems
THE MOON LOOKS ON THEM ALL: Angela Topping browses a collection of essays by John Lucas on the subject of friends and friendship
Poetry review – OKAPI: Rosie Johnston considers Fiona Moore’s book-length poem of eloquent reflection on disorienting personal experience
Poetry review – STAR: Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch reviews a collection of Christmas poems by Angela Graham
Poetry review – COLLECTED POEMS: Edmund Prestwich is grateful for this full and eminently readable record of Fleur Adcock’s poetic creativity
Poetry review – OLD MEN: Paul McDonald finds plenty of verve and imagination as well as mature reflection in the latest collection by Peter Daniels
THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY: John Lucas reflects on variousness in this personal memoir by Graham Caveney
Poetry review – BEYOND THE LAST HOUSE: John Forth suspects that readers will enjoy this collection because Robert Etty enjoyed writing it
Poetry review – DRYPOINT: Edmund Prestwich admires the skill and economy in Jamie McKendrick’s poetry which leaves room for the reader’s own imagination
Poetry review – MUSIC, AWAKE HER: Edmund Prestwich admires both musicality and mutually illuminating images in a new collection by Martha Kapos
Safe Haven. Review by Barbara Lewis. “Oh enemy, the Kurdish people live on,” is how the Kurdish National Anthem defiantly begins. In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the survival of many of them was helped by Operation Safe Haven, an initiative pushed through by then Prime Minister John Major.
Poetry review – FOXGLOVEWISE: Colin Pink admires the technical expertise behind Ange Mlinko’s imaginative and evocative poems
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, year 2025