NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

130 pages printed on thick magazine quality stock, NWR is split into four main sections: Feature articles, Theatre Wales, Poems and Fiction with a regulars section of letters, previews and reviews to round it out.

All of the contributors have published extensively, and everything is written to the highest possible standard. This doesn't mean you are in for a boring or dry read. Far from it. All the articles are retrospectives, well researched and enjoyable to read. The poems are excellent and the short stories well crafted, though I have to add I found all but one of the stories rather dreary.

The Welsh are a fiercely proud people, none more so than on this, their own arts platform. Is it really fifty year since Dylan Thomas died? Sadly, yes. It's not surprising therefore that NWR have rather pushed the boat out, particularly now that his work is fresh from most of the binding copyright restrictions, with an extremely interesting article written by Daniel Williams who discusses Thomas's 1952 review of Amos Tutuola's African novel THE PALM-WINE DRINKARD. The second article here is a full transcript of Thomas's original review, which served as a key moment in the Western reception of anglophone African literature. In fact, with its optimism and general vitality, it's striking just how unstuffy [for the time] Thomas's review was. If I didn't know better I'd swear it might have been written just months ago. Williams has done a great job of bringing it back into the literary sub-conscious.

The third article, by Peter Wakelin, charts the life and work of Welsh artist Cedric Morris and his partner Arthur Lett-Haines. Their rather posed picture also graces the cover. As a gay man myself, concerned with queer equality, I was very interested to note that, despite it being a prisonable offence in 1937, these men made no secret of their relationship and lived quite openly together at Benton End in Suffolk. They turned the place into a school and haven for artists, and attracted a Who's Who of talented and rising artists of their day to their idyllic haven. It's good that Wakelin concentrates on the positive aspects of that relationship as well as informing us about two new books about the life and work of the artist. Morris was a minimalist and there are numerous colour plates of his work with fuller descriptions of technique and style by Wakelin. Well worth reading.

The same can be said for Fflur Dafydd's excellent article about novelist and critic Angharad Price. This is a must-read for aspiring novelists and short story writers. It not only gets to the heart of this amazingly successful writer but also manages to sketch out the basics of how to plot and write a good story yourself.

The last article is a lush memoir of the artists Gwilym Prichard and Claudia William's. After living for seventeen years in Brittany the couple returned to Gwredog Isaf in Wales but clearly the colder climate didn't agree with them. Then a chance opportunity to visit Santorini and paint, we are treated to the delights of this new adventure. Again, there are lots of colour plates progressing their delightful sojourn. I have to say the article warmed my soul, propped up in my Manchester bed just pre-Christmas!

NWR includes THEATRE IN WALES as a sandwich filling in the middle. Again, there are two articles, one is called A CRY OF RAGE: Playwright Gary Owen In Conversation With Sgript Cymru's Simon Harris. The other is SPEAKING TWO SPOKES, Dramatist Meic Povey interviewed by Dafydd Llewelyn. Coming from opposite but not opposing sides, they tackle the impact and power of trying to keep theatre in Wales lively, fresh and cutting edge despite sparse audiences. In keeping with the rest of this volume, the writing is strong, totally accessible and gives the reader insights into how to write for this key market.

I've left the poetry section to last. I read the poems first and enjoyed them the most. This work was so good I would have liked to have seen a separate anthology. I noticed THE PTERODACTYL'S WING, edited by Richard Gwyn is advertised on the back cover of NWR. There are fourteen poems in total by nine poets — all are excellent. A lot of the topic pertains to Wales although most of the poets live elsewhere.

Christopher Meredith is represented by three poems, two being totally unsentimental pieces about his Welsh mother. This extract from COLOUR picks up from the fifth line of the second stanza:

	before we all were born
	a war and a strike and another war ago
	when Armageddon stood at the turn of the hill
	in Troedrhiwgwair.

	And under my hand this photograph's a lie —
	you simplified in monochrome,
	hands stiffened to arthritic paddles,

	The unprepossessing tuber says it all:
	this is the god Ganesa, elephant-man
	— or looks like him. The queue in the front hall
	shuffles towards the lounge that's now a shrine.

	The hiss and blow of oxygen
	muffled mother's words

	Lifting me into focus
	her face resumed edges
	a sepia fleck floated
	in a pale grey iris

With a selection of book previews and reviews to round out the pages, I can honestly recommend this, and future copies of New Welsh Review, as an excellent read to everyone, not just to English speaking Welsh people.

I have never seen the New Welsh Review before and soon realised what I have been missing! This is a comprehensive and intelligent review of the current arts and cultural scenes in Wales. This issue contains interviews, short stories, features, poetry and a supplement on Welsh Theatre.

In the first feature, Andrew Motion, the poet laureate of the United Kingdom discusses with Peter Finch: LAUREATES — DOES WALES NEED ONE? The historic and current roles of poet laureates is examined in a number of countries. This includes Canada where the chosen poet is rewarded with $22 000 for public duties and to produce their own work at their own pace — no doubt they will get their money's worth from the present incumbent who already has sixty books to his name! The overwhelming conclusion of the article is that Wales does need its own poet laureate — to champion poetry in education and public life and also to act as a distinctive Welsh voice in public poetry.

It is interesting to flick from this article to the poetry section, which in this issue includes the runners up from the Cardiff International Poetry Competition 2004. Some of the competition poems are a little touched with the self conscious showing off that can happen when the writer is trying to impress the judges, but they are all good poems. My favourite of these poems is Evelyn Cook's CRONE with its pen portrait of the old woman the narrator sees herself becoming, her descriptions are clever and vivid and sometimes funny:

	Naturally, my cottage,
	unkempt and unlovely, with its
	inappropriate windows, will ensure
	depression in property values,
	an explosion of dandelions.

The non-competition poems are also all well worth reading. Some are a little underwhelming, but Leslie Norris gives us a wonderful evocation of childhood in THE LAW OF GRAVITY. It is a simple narrative, but one that is packed with significant moments that paint a vivid picture of a young boy's awareness of his growing understanding of the world and his relationship with his father.

The other outstanding non-competition poem is Paul Steffan Jones' HELL IS A PLACE — a beautiful short poem of loneliness and loss:

	Now birds can no longer
	Navigate the feathered sky
	But instead fall dead
	Or appear at windows
	Trying to understand glass,

The Theatre in Wales Supplement contains interviews and diary type articles about the state of theatre in Wales. Some of these items for me felt overlong and I would certainly have enjoyed them more if I were more aware of what is going on in Welsh theatre. Roger William's article on taking his play LINGUA to New Zealand was entirely fascinating however. It discusses issues around minority languages (Welsh and Maori in particular) and compares the state of theatre in Wales (where he claims there is little interest in new work) and New Zealand (where there is an appetite for and commitment to new work by new writers from all of the nation's peoples).

It always seems inappropriate to review reviews, other than to say that the ones here are intellingent and interesting. However, in FINDING IMAGES FOR THE FUTURE, Frances Williams gives us much more than a review — this is a feature length article on the visual arts in Wales, beautifully illustrated, that askes questions around the definition of Welshness and the place of the visual arts in the wider Welsh cultural scene.

New Welsh Review demonstrates the vibrant state of culture and arts in Wales today while asking some necessary questions arounds funding and political commitment. It is outward looking and questioning rather than inward looking and dogmatic, which would be easy in a small nation. It is also a stimulating and enjoyable read.