Tuesday, June 28, 2011

review of centuries of skin in south magazine

Ragged Raven Press and I are very pleased with the review of 'Centuries of Skin', by Ross Cogan, in 'South' magazine.


A couple of quotes:

'Mostly, however, Ezekiel stays firmly in the present, calmly observing the particulars of everyday life. At best she is a skilled minituarist - a Jane Austen cataloguing the telling details of women's lives, of city life, even of life seen from the bus...'

'I found this collection life affirming in its knack of finding joy in the smallest of gestures and the oddest of places'

http://www.southpoetry.org/

Monday, June 20, 2011

poetry snapshots: david mac




Red Beat




Your heart is a big red bell,

a pumping howl,

a hot steamy pie,

and so is mine.

They keep their legendary ticking,

their sore beat

like the glad voice of God.

Listen…

We are alive, we are in love,

the pulse is fierce.

Do you hear?

Listen…

Our hearts’ clock is

the only time that matters.





David Mac is 32-year-old wino forklift driver whose work can be found in Ambit, Purple Patch, The Journal, Weyfarers, United Press, Monkey Kettle, Clockwise Cat, Urban District Writer, erbacce, Streetcake, Urban Landscapes, Neon Highway, KRAX, Moodswing, Antique Children, Danse Macabre, Mud Luscious, Burning Houses, This Zine Will Change Your Life, Poetry Over Coffee, Global Tapestry Journal, Obsessed With Pipework, Howls and Pushycats, Word Riot, Decanto, as well as being a featured poet on The Poetry Kit’s ‘Caught On The Net’.


Many self-publishd chapbooks available plus ‘These Dirty Nothings’ and ‘Room is Brutal’ from erbacce-press.

He is currently locked in a mad room somewhere in the Bedfordshire Hell writing his cheap, dirty, twisted words, and drinking his vat of cheap red wine.

Read more words on Write Out Loud: www.writeoutloud.net/poets/davidmac

lutonghoul@hotmail.co.uk

Monday, June 06, 2011

poetry snapshots: andrew oldham



The Real Icarus



The men have taken to shore,

drunk and singing, arm in arm with whores.

My son, their Captain, he yells, keep her fast,

sing my shanties or feel the lash.

Away away-oh, away away-oh.



Down by the docks he pisses on tramps,

shows them wax burns, all born from lamps.

In alleys, in taverns, he spreads his lies,

shows them goose feathers, bullshit flies.

Away away-oh, away away-oh.



I am immortal, says my son, women snigger,

cocks his pistol, smiles, pulls the trigger.

A snap, a fizz against wax, a misfired dud,

my son is not born of my blood.

Away away-oh, away away-oh.



Icarus fell here, women say, as I come and go,

in a tavern, in a marketplace, he performed his show.

No fizz, I melted the wax from the barrel of his gun,

he took away my home, my life, my inventions, my son.

Away away-oh, away away-oh.








 
Andrew Oldham has been a columnist for The London Magazine. His fiction has featured in The Sunday Times and his first poetry collection, Ghosts of a Low Moon (Lapwing, Belfast 2010), is available at http://www.andrewoldham.co.uk/




York Literature Festival HUB 2018 event, Tuesday, 20th March

I'm looking forward to my first event for absolutely ages - at the York Literature Festival HUB. Many thanks to YLF and Valley...