– Reviewed by Charlotte Rowland – Fiona Sinclair’s Ladies Who Lunch is about women and the items that represent and insinuate feminine regimes, focussing on materials and consumer objects. As accessories, acts of motherhood and aspects of physical womanly beauty clash and collide, the poems attempt to reconcile vying feminine duties, even when those duties impede on a sense…
– Reviewed by Becky Varley–Winter – The cover of A Piece of Information About His Invisibility is a plant with its roots showing, and a small framed photograph of a girl (Laressa Dickey as a child?), enclosing a long, somewhat prose-y poem about memory and place (the Tennessee of Dickey’s childhood). The blurb tells me that this work ‘tracks the inevitable loss…
– Reviewed by Becky Varley–Winter – Bethany Carlson‘s Diadem Me is published beautifully by MIEL press: the cover is an image of bright beads, scattered flowers and petals on white, like a bride’s dressing table, and the poems are divided into sections: Stature, Posture, Gesture, Pose and Repose. The title is theatrical, queeny: a sparkly crown of stuck-together words, glinting. By ‘stuck-together’…
– Reviewed by Steve Nash – Martin Appleby, editor and architect of the punk-tinged literary zine Paper and Ink, shares his hope in the opening notes that readers will ‘enjoy the shit out of’ issue 4. Truth be told, it’s not hard to enjoy something that bears so many marks of the passion that clearly went into its…
-Reviewed by Holly Jazz Kotzé- Because The Night is a collection of short stories all by the same writer, Stacy Hardy. Here’s my confession: that bit of information somehow passed me by; an administrative error, a collapse in concentration, whatever it was I started reading this book thinking it was simply a novel or a…
- reviewed by James Mcloughlin – Dead Good Indeed – a homely venue and homelier hosts David Morrissey once said of Liverpool that ‘it was never a city that criticized anyone for taking a chance’ and I proceeded to the Dead Good Poets Society open mic night (for the first time) with this in mind.…
- reviewed by Lettie McKie – The Grand in Clapham Junction is not a typical venue for literary entertainment. An old theatre converted into a nightclub it comes with battered stucco balconies, stalls cleared of seats for a dance floor, sticky walls, multi-coloured lights and a disco ball. However, in a savvy attempt to draw…
– Reviewed by Becky Varley–Winter – The cover of Susan Lewis’ latest pamphlet, State of the Union, shows ‘Marriage’ by Melissa Stern: two androgynous, different-coloured figures sit bolt upright, facing away from each other, straight-faced, back to back. Their posture is strong, but they appear absorbed in their own worlds: one closes their eyes dreamily, while the…
-Reviewed by Bethany W. Pope- Ashland Creek Press’ Among Animals: The Lives of Animals and Humans in Contemporary Short Fiction is a complex anthology with an agenda that runs deeper than the themes explored in each individual story. The editor, John Yunker, makes his stance on the nature of the anthology clear in his introduction,…
Reviewed by Sally Jack Warning – this review contains (p)unadulterated and gratuitous punning. A bloomin’ great queue, fish and chips and an appreciation of puns would all likely feature on a ‘what do Brits enjoy’ checklist. Shakespeare was a master punner, Milton Jones has forged a career out of it and puns and word play…
–Reviewed by Sue Kindon– I missed out on Miles Salter’s first collection, The Border (2011, written as Miles Cain), also published by Valley Press (an independent publishing house based in Scarborough, who appear to be doing sterling service), so I came to his second collection not knowing what to expect. The cover illustration, depicting two squirrels in boxing gear laying into…
–Reviewed by Fiona Sinclair – The Third Miss Keane presents the Ireland of another era, seen through the eyes of an observant child with a rich imagination, brimming with characters whose eccentricities make them seem both human and mystical. Each poem forms a detailed narrative character study. Many of the titles bear the character’s names: Mattie, Angela, Old Billy. The…
–Reviewed by Simon Zonenblick – The title poem of John Foggin’s chapbook explains that ‘Larach’ is Gaelic for a place that no longer is. Presenting stark but vivid images, he begins this twenty-poem chapbook by contrasting that road in Spain; a hot nightwind, the churring of cicadas. Cactus; salt in the air with other rustic, Mediterranean…
-Reviewed by Steve Nash- Part daybook, part astronomical chart (and definitely winning the award for the most appropriate title for our ‘reviews of the ephemeral’), Dorothy Lehane’s debut collection Ephemeris is a dazzling expedition through the stars. Lehane clearly delights in the shapes of words and poems upon the page, and the varied placement of…
-Claire Trévien- There has been some exciting structural changes to Sabotage Reviews in the last few months and I thought a post detailing this would be useful to everyone. As you might have noticed from our Vacancy page, we are expanding the reach of our spoken word reviews and looking for more volunteers to edit…
