book promotion: ken champion's novella

I reviewed Ken Champion's short story collection and selected poems last month, and am pleased to announce that his new novella, 'The Dramaturgical Metaphor' is published by The Penniless Press, priced at 7.99. I'm looking forward to reading it! For more of Ken's work, have a look at his author site. Penniless Press are good at choosing covers that suit their authors' themes and images, and this book is no exception.

book reviews: ken champion's urban narratives and cameo metro



I've been a fan of Ken Champion's work for quite a while now, and have enjoyed his collected stories and poems in these two publications. The titles and cover photos alone tell you quite a lot about his themes and images.

In Urban Narratives, the compelling descriptions of (mostly) urban landscapes - trains, cafes, parks, streets, graveyards, cinemas, plus kitchens and poetry readings - ground the restlessness and defiance of Ken's characters. This allows him to explore the themes of social mobility, death, relationships, and coping with the unexpected reactions of others:

'she, in a department store, disappearing, and him, unguarded, panicking, intellectually knowing that it was the child in him being left by mummy - no emotions are new'
(Fracture)

There are thirty stories in this collection. Around half of them feature the recurring character of James Kent, a psychoanalyst who questions his choice of profession: these are interspersed with stories told from other points of view. My personal favourites were 'The Beat Years' and 'Educating Rita', which could both have had escapist endings for Chris, the narrator, but consciously didn't, which made them all the more authentic.

The beauty of a short story is that it doesn't have to tie up every loose end, and several of the stories contain coincidences that leave us wondering. They often contain hard truths:

'the equation being that if he looked fit and tanned then he wouldn't age, ergo, wouldn't die. It was a subject he'd never studied: the psychology of death.'
(Lay Preacher)

Cameo Metro contains new poems, and poems from Ken's previous collections, African Time (Tall Lighthouse, 2002), Cameo Poly (Tall Lighthouse, 2004), and But Black and White is Better (Tall Lighthouse, 2008). There are six sections, each on a different theme: City, African, Retro, Americana, Theatre, and Rewind. Ken is very good at writing about frustration and broken promises, often with dark humour, and this is a poet who understands the value of phrasing, especially how to use punctuation, line endings, and enjambment to increase tension.

I'm already looking forward to Ken's new publication.

Ken Champion, Urban Narratives, The Penniless Press, Preston, 2013.
Ken Champion, Cameo Metro, The Penniless Press, Preston, 2013.

book review: shanta everington's drowning in cherryade

This is an A6 size, fifteen page pamphlet, just right for slipping into a pocket or a handbag. The lively cover is pink and bubbly, contrasting with the mention of drowning. Many of the ten poems in this collection have been previously placed in competitions or published in respectable magazines.

Shanta is also a novelist for young adults, and as well as poems about family, relationships, and motherhood, she explores teenage friendships and crushes to show how private moments often take place in public:

'...I cut the others off

and wait till they walk out laughing, to take you to the counter.'

(Shrine to Justin)

Some of the titles, 'Old Dear', 'Girl's World,' also present us with everyday images that are subverted imaginatively in the poems:

'I make toffee apples of her cheeks,

her eyes a crinkly purple like fading bruises'

(Girl's World)

Bedouin Books is an American publisher, and from this British reviewer's perspective, there is a new vein of fresh poetic voices in the States at the moment, such as Alison Stine, Jordan Davis, and Edward Nudelman. Like these poets, Shanta takes situations that appear ordinary to the casual observer, and floods them with intensity and intimacy, often using longer lines and enjambment to keep us in the moment.

The poem 'Aquatic Alice', in fact, could be a fitting description of how Shanta's imagery look closely at the reality of a situation:

'... Be still. She

has something to say.'

(Aquatic Alice)

Shanta's poetry chapbook is this year's well-deserved winner of the Bedouin Books annual chapbook competition.

Shanta Everington, Drowning in Cherryade, Bedouin Books, Winconsin, 2014.

book review: andy humphrey's a long way to fall

Andy Humphrey's first collection, 'A Long Way To Fall' was published by Lapwing Press,  in 2012.  Andy runs the monthly poetry event 'Speaker's Corner' in York, and he understands the value of an arresting start to a poem:

'They snatched me out of swirling sea'

(The Mariner's Return)

'It's the sugar I can't stand'

(Sugar)

This 60-page collection is a good example of the importance of editing, redrafting, and not rushing into publication. Every poem has earned its place, and it feels like a collection that draws together different themes. Many poems are narrative poems, written in the first person, and a strong mythical thread, that encompasses past and present, runs throughout the collection:

'He didn't get as far as Valinor.
Instead, he put ashore at Birkenhead,
and discovered rock and roll.'

(I Know Where Gandalf Lives Now)

There are also poems that describe, with great imaginative precision, personal experiences involving love, travel, and loss:

'I tell you about the tea shop
with the higgledy-piggledy floor
where the waitress mixed up the Lapsang Souchong
and I sketched the flowery lady in the hat.'

(Bringing Back Poems)

I hope we won't have to wait for too long for Andy's second collection.

book review: in the moors by nina milton

Even though I have a tendency to skip to the end of crime novels to find out 'whodunnit' (or, in this case, whether two of the characters get together) I resisted this impulse when I began reading 'In the Moors', and subsequently could not put this book down.

Sabbie is an engaging character with an unusual profession: she is a shaman who is drawn into a police case involving one of her own clients. Her concern for her client, and her determination to keep hold of her intuition, even at the expense of her own safety, was completely absorbing.

 'Perhaps because I was thinking of rabbit holes and strange, reversible worlds ... I started at the end,' Sabbie says. Nina Milton has also given her readers the challenge of making associations between beginnings and endings, present and past, children and adults, memories and facts, speech and silences.

At one point, a wise character says, 'Everything connects'. Small everyday details are hugely significant here: bicycle wheels, eggs, nicknames. I found the characters - animal, spirit, human - convincing, and the various settings either warm and lively, or haunting.

In the end, Sabbie's search for understanding reminds us how our childhood experiences influence how we live as adults and how we make sense of the world.

Find out more about Nina on her highly popular blog.
'In the Moors' is published by Ink Press.

book review: red roots, orange sky by csilla toldy

I always look forward to reading a Lapwing publication, and Csilla Toldy's poetry pamphlet is no exception. Relationships are a strong theme, with the first section of the pamphlet, 'Red Roots', exploring growing up, and the second section, 'Orange Sky' looking at the twists and turns of a relationship. Csilla is also a film-maker, and many of the poems feature surprising visual images:

Quick, bring
the needle to pin
her down into the dark -


(from 'The Sewing Machine')

Repeated images of losing blood show us the vulnerability contained in the narrative and impressionistic poems, while the orange sky seems to represent the weight of the past.  The free verse formats, punctuation, last lines, and titles work very hard to show us, rather than tell us, the strong emotions here. This is an ambitious collection and I was left with the feeling that the poet has more to say. I hope to read more from Csilla in the future.

Find out more about Csilla, including details of 'Red Roots, Orange Sky' on her website.

bobby parker's 'pictures of screaming people'

I was lucky enough to get to write a blurb for Bobby Parker's pamphlet collection, published by Erbacce Press, 'Pictures of Screaming People'.

'These poems are heartbreakingly honest moments of loss and survival, full of fine rhythms, surprising humour, and ambitious imagery. A powerful new voice.'

It won't disappoint.