This week’s poetry spotlight returns to Ali Whitelock’s charming and much-loved work, highlighting the poem ‘the cumquats of christmas past’ from her second collection, The Lactic Acid in the Calves of Your Despair.
This week’s poetry spotlight shines on the poem ‘Cross’, from Helen Parsons’ collection The Feeling of Bigness.
This week’s poetry spotlight contemplates the poem ‘Courtier’, from Aidan Coleman’s vigorous collection Mount Sumptuous.
This week’s poetry spotlight shines on Heather Taylor-Johnson’s freshly launched collection Alternative Hollywood Ending, highlighting the poem ‘Botanic Park’.
This week’s poetry spotlight shines on Mike Ladd’s poem ‘Back Again’, from his multi-genre collection Invisible Mending.
This week’s spotlight shines on Jack Hibberd’s most recent poetry collection, highlighting the titular poem ‘Sweet River’.
This week’s spotlight once again shines on Peter Bakowski and Ken Bolton’s tandem collection Nearly Lunch, this time highlighting the poem ‘Selling Yourself’.
‘A spectrum of individuals, from the naive to the kind, caustic to the stoic, to those who suggest other ways of being – either hopeful, philosophical, grateful or resigned – pleased, though, all of them, that it’s NEARLY LUNCH.’ – Cover blurb
Working in the Wakefield bookstore, with hundreds of books laid out before me, I am often in the position to judge the books by their covers, searching for the most interesting looking ones to flick through and sometimes (often) buy. The cover image (shown above) was why I picked this particular book off the shelf, and I was surprised to find that Wakefield’s own Jonny Inverarity had designed it!
In this week’s poetry spotlight, I’ve chosen to feature ‘Farewell to a Colleague’ by Julian Zytnik.
Following this week’s announcement that Jelena Dinić has won the Mary Gilmore Award, it seems fitting we resume our Poetry Spotlight series by focusing on her startling debut collection.
Fresh off the press, Nearly Lunch is another collaboration from these two poets, after their previous Elsewhere Variations (also published by Wakefield Press), which is a companion volume.