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This page last updated: 14th December 2004. 		Poetry Monthly #96

Edited, as always, by the refreshingly frank and markedly dedicated Martin Holroyd, this issue opens with an editorial page of comments from appreciative readers. Their comments may well be, in the end, the final word on the worth of this journal, its poetry and its art:

My favourites [from issue 95], in no particular order, were The Village Hop, Reclamation, Stay Indoors and The Mirror, though I could easily name as many more — Liz Deakin

I particularly enjoyed Stay Indoors and Reclamation. The photograph on the opposite page was delightful — Joan Sheridan Smith

I would like to say thanks for Stay Indoors as in the 1960s I had the same experience of protesting during pregnancy, also the pleasure Tulips gave me, especially as it was illustrated with a Mondrian, and also To Diane, our 6.50 pm Weather Woman which shows the empathy we all need. — Pat Watson
As the committed readers of this small, independently published journal indicate, the poetry is memorable, honest and selected with care, and the art work is colourful and aptly placed throughout the collection to support rather than detract from the poems.

In this issue, we have 25 poems, 3 works of art (cover illustration by Geoff Stevens, painting by Rita Kearton, and watercolour by Pat Arrowsmith) and an informative notice board of publishing opportunities, events, exhibitions and new books by contributors. Poetry Monthly is much more than a journal — it is a vitalized community of poets, artists and readers of taste.

To a poem, this month's collection is mature and thoughtful, but of those that stand out, we have the haunting and delightfully cryptic MY GREEN DAUGHTER by James Birch (illustrated by Kearton's lush-dream of a painting of a long-haired girl with a green ribbon, floating, womb-like in a verdant blue, green and purple swirl, clutching to her breast a multicoloured fish):

	In the cold river,
	Under the water,
	By the dark stones,
	Lies my green daughter.
In FOR THE TREES Alan Hardy eschews easy emotionalism and gives us instead a vision of an ardent nature that scorns human beings who would trivialize it with twee, condescending sentimentality. The human speaker, who recognizes the menace in the trees that press up against the road on which he travels, seems both petulant and wise in his reflections on the difficult beauty of nature and the genuinely knotty relationship of humans and the natural world:
	To be honest, I've never liked woods,
	their claustrophobic dreariness whichever way you turn,
	and I have no cuddly recollections of elfs bears rabbits
	wandering about speaking
	read to me
	to feel at home in these vast winding corridors,
	with rash of colours and imposing brooding columns,
	they have the sort of beauty you can hide
	and not see the wood for the trees in
Mike Yates in BOY RACERS is witty in his reflections on the intersection of history and the present day, when he asks if the young men of Roman Britain ever drag raced their chariots down their roads to impress young, Classical maidens:
	this roman road
	straight as a drag strip
	did boy racers
	duel down there
	in latin times?
	did they compare
	the chrome on their chariots?
	did they customise them?
	write odes and eulogies
	in praise of their performance?
Set beneath Arrowsmith's brilliantly, colourfully entangled watercolour Old Shed, is Mike Hoy's THERE ARE STORIES:
	behind rocks and flowers
	Hyacinths sprang from blood
	of some youth slain by a Greek God

	I care more for myths than blooms
Both the poet and painter display a relationship with nature marked by beauty and the willingness to scratch the surface, to get the hands dirty. And, one final cull, from the poem that I think sums up the well-crafted, creatively provocative attraction of the majority of the works collected for this edition — TOADS by Martin Potter:
	Words are toads,
	Coax them out
	from under their stones
	with the worm
	of your tongue.
Martin Holroyd publishes his editorial philosophy on the back of each journal. It says that
The editorial aim of Poetry Monthly is to provide a platform for expressive contemporary poetry — occasionally complemented by images of the graphic arts... The editor looks for highly individual and creative works.
And so it is with this fine edition.

reviewer: Stephanie Smith-Browne.
Poetry Monthly #100

Martin Holroyd, editor of Poetry Monthly, describes the magazine as aiming to provide a liberal platform for expressive contemporary poetry — occasionally supplemented by images in the graphic arts.

Issue 100 amply fulfils this aim. In this 100th issue, a milestone in the magazine's 8-tear history, I found the poetry was certainly expressive and well supported by some attractive graphics. These include a nude painting by Liz Deakin and a digital painting — THE CROWN by the editor, black and white drawings illustrating the camp at Guantanamo together with a poem GUANTANAMO by Diane Pacitti. There us also a particularly striking cover for the magazine in full colour.

The all important poetry content I found to vary in quality, but I'm sure every reviewer of poetry magazines invariably finds this to be the case, so much depending on personal taste, poems are, however, always interesting. They are mostly short and none the worse for that.

PELICANS AT LAKE NAIVASHA by M R Bhagavan is a poem I like which gives an idea of the general style — nicely descriptive and written with admirable economy of language. The last lines:

	they land on the rift
	quilts of white on wavy grey.
LAST CALL by Neil Leadbeater is another poem, simply written about the return to school at the end of summer, that I find sensitive and evocative. Rather different is THE BED by Michael Leech, a powerfully written piece about the sadness in ageing:
	She sat on the edge of my bed
	And her hair, her one-time splendid hair,
	Crumbled like old sheets of frost.
Two other poems I like are IN THE WOOD by Ruth Parker and WEATHER REPORT by Alice Beer. Both poems are simply expressed but effective and have impact. The latter, about a changing relationship, has the ending verse:
	till snow came down
	and a wall of ice
	built up between us
	that even the blazing sun
	was not strong enough
	to melt.
A poem about the controversial WIND FARM by Pat Arrowsmith, with some strong imagery, also impressed:
	Sun-caught in the distance
	They prism-glitter like a trove of diamonds
Yet another poem I enjoy is PRESENCE by Patrick B. Osada, about Barabar Hepworth's studio at St. Ives which captures the atmosphere of the place excellenty:
	... work has only briefly stopped. It may
	Be luck — or artifice, perhaps —
	But it's as if you've slipped away.
	Gone out for lunch or popped next door.
I find the magazine rewarding to read and good value, with thankfully, accessible poems.

reviewer: Ron Woollard.