Just arrived

 

A couple of years ago, I reviewed Robert Selby's The Coming Down Time for Magma. To cut a long story short, I absolutely loved it.

So, I'm really looking forward to the above, a collection centred around the Civil Wars. Collisions between poetry and history are very much my thing anyway, and the 17th century is a particular interest of mine.

More to follow when I've had a chance to digest it, but fair to say that first impressions are very good.

Coming soon...

Last year, I reviewed Robert Selby's The Coming-Down Time (Shoestring Press) for Magma. I loved it – it was pretty much my favourite collection of the year – combining as it did the highly personal with the historical and the subtly political by way of close attention to family history.

He has a new collection, The Kentish Rebellion, forthcoming from Shoestring in July, and will be reading poems from it at the Poetry London launch this week – you can find full details here.

Magma 79

I received my copy of Magma 79 yesterday, and as always there's a really good mixture of poetry (including poems from the latest Magma Open Pamphlet Competition), articles and reviews. I haven't had chance to read much of it yet, and have to admit I went straight to two poets I always enjoy – Tony Williams and David Morley – but I look forward to having a longer read tonight.

It also includes my own reviews of collections by Robert Selby, Katrina Naomi and Robert Alan Jamieson. I won't tell you here what I thought about them, other than that they all had something to recommend them - you'll need to read Magma to find out more.