Poetry review – SAYING IT WITH FLOWERS: Thomas Ovans reviews a new collection by Peter Phillips and finds its title to be deceptively gentle
Kevin Saving reflects on depictions of John Keats in two books published to mark the poet’s bi-centenary in 2021
Poetry review – CONTINUOUS CREATION; Stuart Henson reviews Les Murray’s last full collection
Poetry review – THE LIGHT ON SIFNOS: Charles Rammelkamp reviews a collection by Barbara Quick which travels through both time and space
Blaise Cendrars, The Invention of Life – Eric Robertson. Review by Alan Price. “He repeatedly expressed impatience at the demands of being a writer, preferring life spent outdoors, travelling or in the company of others to the solitary confinement of the writing desk. Cendrars was widely photographed, most famously by Robert Doisneau, but never at a writing desk.”
Eric Robertson
The Excursions of Mr Broucek. Review by Barbara Lewis. The Excursions of Mr Broucek is an opera like no other – or as Wasfi Kani, the founder and power behind the bold, brave and never daunted Grange Park Opera, puts it: “Cosi fan Tutti it isn’t.”
London Now and The Art of Literature. Review by Barbara Lewis. Leonardo da Vinci, creator of Salvator Mundi, the most expensive painting sold yet, said: “painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen”. Seller of the Salvator Mundi in 2017, Christie’s, which is cultivating its image as so much more than a place where very rich people spend millions, has taken his words as part of the inspiration for an exhibition open free to the public that showcases teasingly the latest lots next to rarely seen, privately-held works that are not for sale.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Complete Series. Review by Alan Price. Hitchcock said he had always wanted to work in the short story. ‘The small simple tale of a single idea building to a turn, a twist at the end. A little shocker. The story that’s lost when stretched to the length of a movie.’
Poetry review – REQUIEM: P.W. Bridgman takes an in-depth look at Síofra McSherry’s long poem which faces loss and death
Nightmare Alley and The Razor’s Edge. Signal One Blu Rays 2022. Review by Alan Price. Nightmare was violently against the grain and a box office flop. And Razor resolutely conventional yet questioning societal norms was a huge hit. Both are the film children of Edmund Goulding who on the evidence of these films and others (The Old Maid and Dark Victory) was a fine director.
* The Summer 2022 issue of London Grip New Poetry features: *Charlotte Gann *Sally Festing *Pam Job *Mary Mulholland *Neil Leadbeater *Stephen Claughton *Brian Docherty *Mary Franklin *John Grey *Jane Simpson *Bob Cooper *Phil Connolly *Paul Stephenson *Elizabeth Smither *Gareth Writer-Davies *Stuart Henson *Rosemary Norman *Alison Campbell *Rod Whitworth *Stuart Handysides *Joan Michelson *Arthur Russell […]
Poetry review – WYSG: Pat Edwards explores poems of place and landscape in a new book by Gareth Writer-Davies
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, year 2022 • Tags: books, Pat Edwards, poetry