NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

ENVOI will need no introduction to most readers of poetry magazines, having established a solid reputation since its beginnings in 1957. The poetry that lingers most in my mind from this issue is Sally Festing's sequence from THE DONER'S DAUGHTER, in which she writes about the long term emotional effects of sperm donation. Sally Festing will know something herself about this, having grown up with a father who was one of the earliest doners:

	I remember you saying
	in that half-shy   proud   excited boyish way
	your sperm was super charged.

	slides his prick
	between his fingers

	We felt normal, loved; life took its course until
	suddenly Father died...
 
	Don't tell
	never tell
	if you do they'll grow up crippled
	Don't even whisper in their ears
	it's a secret none must bear.
 
	Father gave us his blessing but not his genes.
 
	We searched our faces in the mirror
	for what was real.
	We'd been made mechanically.

	his fingers jab the air, construct geometries
	the sighted do no know

	...for the first time I remembered one kiss,
	your goodbye wave,
	and wonder how the years have spanned our lives,
	regret I cannot even recall your name

	She'd put me back on the shelf
	and keep looking
	given half a chance

In his editorial Roger Elkin advices new poets to read widely, which is sound advice that more should follow.

A new trend here, which is hotly debated in the READERS' LETTERS section, is to print biographical notes and statements by poets before their work as an introduction. This is not something I find appealling. Indeed I find it largely off-putting. Sheena Canham prefaces her work with the statement

These four poems are concerned, in different ways, with ambition and control and the regrets which can be associated with having allowed such impulses to dominate from time to time. They take as their beginning different moments in people's lives and the thoughts which circle around such moments, looking backwards and forwards in time.

Eve Jackson's contributions spread over three pages, so I was able to come to her delightful poem 10 WAYS OF LOOKING AT LONG-TAILED TITS without first reading her notes which are on a previous page. Having enjoyed the poem it is OK to then turn back and learn that she is working on a series of bird poems which seems a good excuse for spending lots of time gazing out of the window.

Some notes are thankfully short and Philip Waterhouse induces one to read his poems by issuing only a brief statement

As unregenerate expatriate, am exploring ways to maintain non-combatancy against pressure to return to warring worlds of journalism/politics.

	now, Buttercup,
	curl that big arm back to you, slow,
	beckoning big boy so bad in need
	of big breath, motion to your
	cushy jazz-babee, come to mama —
	He'll fall all.

	What did I expect having left
	the island unvisited for so long?

	That paths would still be bracken hid
	...

	From the boat I saw bare well-worn tracks
	on the southern hill, but not our tree...

Here is probably one of the liveliest and very best poetry journals around. It's self funding [no Arts Council bursaries etc]. Subscribers are encouraged to submit up to six previously unpublished poems, or a sequence, or a longer poem. Decisions usually come within 6 to 8 weeks. Unlike a lot of editors, Roger Elkin gives helpful feedback and suggests corrections if he wants you to re-submit a piece and always gives a good reason if he decides not to publish. Put simply, Elkin is one of the busiest, hard working and most helpful poetry editors in the UK today.

This issue comprises 130 pages filled with 138 poems by 38 poets. All the poems are of a very high standard and, as you would expect, there is a full range of topics. From Greek mythology to the bombing of the twin towers in New York, with every conceivable stop along the way, including poems in translation. Each poet is given a small platform of between three and six poems [six is quite rare], with further space for commenting on their work [if they so choose]. I feel the latter, a recent innovation, is a mixed blessing. Sure, I like to know a little about contributors but unfortunately Elkin is currently allowing up to a full page about what brought poets to write a certain piece. I was taught "let the poem speak for itself", so feel that a short biog would be preferable.

Where possibly, one writer's platform concludes with a piece that is complimentary to the first piece of the next, and so on, thus a loose string of continuity is achieved. I would say with confidence that everyone, no matter what their poetry taste, will find something really enjoyable in every copy of Envoi.

Here are a few quotes. Mike Sharpe's poems use the countryside as setting. This superb vision from TIDY NATURE

	Aggressive barbering has clipped
	his military hedge to bristling contempt
	for mine, still hippy with neglect,

	It is a childlike film of an adult assassination.
	Abraham Zapruder:
	the last innocent photographer.

	I could no more caress his face, always so smooth,
	now blistered with some horrid, leprous rash
	than touch a slimy, wart-encrusted toad
	or writhing worms.

	My pink and white flowers swell,
	as new life stirs.
	I feel him move,
	legs, elbows
	nudge against me.

Envoi is for all people serious about poetry. It's both a great read and one of the places you really should be seen if you write for publication. I have no hesitation in recommending it very highly indeed.