NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

Sentinel Poetry Quarterly 47 Winsford Terrace Great Cambridge Road Edmonton London N18 1BQ UK ISSN 1744-2982 Ł3.95 [Ł4.95 ex-UK] Subscription: 4 issues Ł15.80 [Ł19.80 ex-UK] email Sentinel Poetry Quarterly visit Sentinel Poetry Quarterly's website Before commenting on this review please read the FAQ page Home page Notes for publishers Want to be a reviewer? Anthologies. Books. Audio. Magazines. Software. Video. Artefacts. Web design by Gerald England This page last updated: 14th May 2005.		Sentinel Poetry Quarterly #1
		First issue in A5, 28 pages, black and white cover with an image quite fitting Sentinel appears petite and nice. It is a publication of the Sentinel Poetry Movement, formed in 2002 which aspires to create a community of international poets and a platform to support their work as well as working to develop "the art of words". This issue provides home to the works of Toni Kan, Elizabeth Johnstone, Jekwu Ikeme, Uche Nduka, Tolu Ogunlesi, Kodi Azuonye, Josef Lesser, Uduma Kalu, AnnMarie Eldon and Roberta A McQueen and offers a diverse range of voices to be appreciated. Apart from the poems there are the submission guidelines, notes on contributors, notice of Sentinel Online, whilst the back cover has a self advertisement of short run publishing and printing services that Sentinel offers. In this first issue of the quarterly the magazine has been able to show that it can get a great variation of poetic voices in its presentation. Tolu Ogunlesi's ABEOKUTA is powerful poem that takes the readers to Around and under The rocks An Architecture of Ancient Wonderness. Toni Kan's LAMENT OF A BLACK TRAMP is sharp and poignant poem My sad and distant home that sits sullen Like an orphan in a corner of my heart My dreams float, belly up, in these canals I have murdered them and shall dream no more Although some readers might not like all his poems Toni Kan writes well. Reading (LET'S CONVERSATE AND PROVOCATE though, they are likely to ask should poetry need to remember good taste? Is there any need to attack the queen on a personal level? While it is legitimate to write one's wish to "grab the language by its neck" or "stir up the English language" or even "feed it ganja" or "kick the empire down" even though there is no such thing that remains, there is no need nor requirement to get personal insult into poetry. Jekwu Ikeme's CONFESSIONS AT NOON 2, quotes Pablo Neruda at the begining, is a well crafted piece very powerful and full of spirit. I want to be the shoot the sword in the hand of Shaka the defiance in the gut of Mandela sticking out in the face of seasons living its dream. Sentinel is not like a huge poetry review in size, yet aspires to great things for poetry and hopes to be self financing, if not at least part finacing. But it shows its prospect and determination with its commitment to poetry. Great things start small and we hope this will grow with poetry lovers' support and involvement.
		reviewer: Munayem Mayenin.

		Sentinel Poetry Quarterly #2
		As part of the self-styled Sentinel Poetry Movement, this quarterly is now edited from Edmonton (the opening issue being from Barnet), containing 44 pages of poetry plus one long prose article, and comments on the other literary vehicles of the Movement — SENTINEL POETRY MONTHLY, SENTINEL EXPRESSION WAREHOUSE, and SENTINEL POETRY BAR for discussion on a competitive topic, each of which are on-line. The article is by Pius Adesanmi, entitled LOLA SHONEYIN: A POET'S PENKELEMES YEARS. (A note explains that penkelemes is a literal corruption of peculiar mess, first applied to an expression by a Western Nigerian politician.) Adesanmi introduces Shoneyin by phone from London to a audience at a 2004 seminar in Pennsylvania University, where her style proves popular and audacious. Students want more information about her, and some of her past life, and the author tells of her presence at Ibadan where in 1994 Pius and Lola were young members at campus. The article language goes offbeam now and then, but will be readable and interesting to students and researchers, closing on a note of regret that the enthusiasm of the campus years were behind, when Lola returned to the UK and Pius went to Canada. Of the poems, most come through as strong ideas, heartfelt, but are marred by occasional inappropriate or not ideal phraseology. Two examples are the gambolling vampires and the red-combed rooster spies the dithering day ... elsewhere what seem awkwardnesses are redeemed into a memorability, viz: the genital echo of your red lips Nevertheless, overall, a few unexpected words woven into sentences might be examined to see if they do the work of meaning better than some other word, as in the burial vaults, prodding biography out like a submerged stone ... Idris Caffrey, who leads the poems, is surer of what can be done with the language, and nicely done are his lines in PACING BACKWARDS, where First, a winding lane wedged hard into winter conjures up an excellent picture. The Sentinel Movement has done well to put itself on the map in a very short time, and to encourage poetry no doubt refused by the stuffier and more rigid serials, where, paradoxically, eclecticism itself has limiting boundaries.
		reviewer: Eric Ratcliffe.

		Sentinel Poetry Quarterly #3
		The focus of Sentinel Poetry Quarterly is on what editor Nnorom Azuonye calls the "international community of poets". And this is its main strength. In this issue there are poets from Italy, Nigeria, India, Southern Africa, and the USA as well as small press stalwarts from the UK. Poems cover a wide range of subects from social and political issues to thoughts on love and lust. The work is generally well-crafted and has something to say. Obi Nwakanma's long poem, A QUIET FIRE BURNING, a meditation on suffering and the faith that somehow transcends it, is especially powerful: In a time of want the young leaves, those shrivelled shapes, are the unwrapped dead falling, lying shoeless on the road: A feast for dragonflies [...] Our vocation is silence: but to observe the soldier, oiling his guns, riding northwards to Baghdad — and to see all history, as the head of the camel, lifting from the ground, looking fifty knots into the horizon, nodding. Knowing how the jostle for a gaunt land, always leads to the desert. Some of the poems I would have edited a little more to eliminate sentimentality and cliché. For example, Alan Hardy's otherwise fine poem, LUST, is spoilt by the line two bodies writhe and explode This is intended to contrast with in civil handshakes in the line before, but still strikes me as a piece of overwriting. Besides the poems, there are two fascinating articles: THE INTERNET & POETRY by Gerald England (if this doesn't convince doubters of the value of poetry on the net, I don't know what will) and NIGERIA'S THIRD GENERATION POETRY by the passionate and knowledgeable Pius Adesanmi. A magazine worth supporting.
		reviewer: Ian Seed.