NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

This issue of the magazine, which has doubled its size in the last 5 years from a slim 16 pages, is dedicated to the memory of Richard Caddel, poet and publisher (1949-2003). It features only 8 contributors, but in good measure offerings, from Tom Whalen, Richard Dove, Phil Simmons, Hanny Michaelis, Susan Fearn, Richard Caddel, Alistair Noon, and Matthew Mead. There are no reviews.

Page format is neat, with well-spaced contributions, and the whole made considerably more attractive by the many sketches of Ann Usborne, useful visual interludes though not thematically contiguous with the rest. THE LIQUID SILENCE OF RENÉ CHAR by Tom Whalen is a satiric example of the style of poetry a-buzz with the waspishness of phrases which change direction quicker than TV subliminals. In this case the style comes off, suiting the subject:

	but what fascinated my young eyes, hungry for the nuances of doors,
	was the portable outhouse wherein I saw a man with a syringe
	in his head. Ah, wicked toadstools, lively utensils blooming
	beyond belief like a telephone gone all soft in your hand.

	a compound leading to Silesia,
	Sudetenland. Inside it is a wraith,
	composed of smoke, in faded pink pyjamas.
	You call — your girl's grandmother. She retreats.
	Some men in plain clothes, faceless, move towards you.
	You make off, climb aboard the 488,
	a long-dead dog bounds up . . .

	the cars in front braking —
	and there, lying calm
	as Rimbaud's sleeper in his valley,
	with one arm outstretched,
	with motionless beer-belly,
	Baconish face . . .

	. . . the final priest
	of some late religion,
	a supine stylite

This issue includes some eye-catching art work by Ian Robinson and Ray Seaford, as well as reproductions of drawings by John Claude Nattes, 1805 (on the cover) and Ann Usborne, 1968. A mix of stories and poems, OASIS is to be complimented for giving room to longer pieces of writing than the usual poetry magazine lyric. There is an international flavour with work included from the UK, Eire, Greece and the USA.

However, I found the preference for semi-surrealism and dream sequences became wearing, though individual images did stick in the mind, as in Estill Pollock's THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS:

	We made our way
	Down a street overhung with chocolate gables
	My guide presses an unmarked buzzer ...

	Can you blame me for thinking ...
	that your ideal Friday night is watching
	the mildew advance across an old coat,
	as you wait for your bones
	to go fully cold?

Generally, though, I found the prose in this issue more interesting than the poetry. Both Anthony Rudolf and Andy Brown have a talent for compressing large spans of time and complexities of character into a few sentences. I particularly liked Rudolf's A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN OR MOSTLY THEY WORKED ANYWAY, a title which conveys his tone well. Brown's A LIFE STORY plays cleverly with ages and numbers to compress a long historical period and an old woman's experience into three short paragraphs.

OASIS is an unpretentious journal in appearance, but there is a good deal of challenging material included in its 32 pages.

The slender elegance of this features the work of eight writers, and the art selected blends harmoniously with the text for a fine, integrated reading experience. Carrie Etter's lines

	under the skin the muscle
	around the marrow inside
	the bone that yet palm to
	to hip into all disheveled
	wandering stars,

This issue maintains the OASIS tradition of embracing the nontraditional. CELESTIAL RADIO, Ian Robinson's own, puts art and poetry into an intuitive realm, a moment of intellectual play for both sides of the brain, the capitalized words threading through the poem like Ariadne's thread, involving the reader within the context of the poem as Something Inexplicable Watching.

The poems selected for this issue are of consistently fine quality, original and written with the eye turned inward, illuminating depths. Sometimes, too, they take a strong descriptive stance, as when Deborah Moffatt writes of

	His frosty breath
	A scent of cigarettes,
	The smell of semen and spruce,
	The chill of winter air biting at your naked legs

	Stroking stone, gneiss, mica, granite,
	outcrops worn by casual touch,
	worn by ritual, worn by wind,
	or sliding fingers under lichen sheets

OASIS #110 also contains a welcome element of humor and light, including Ray Seaford's playful drawings and Rupert Mallin's TWO PAVEMENT POEMS, which he created from linking words he found on the ground, linking the sea to gravel and grass. The journal tosses in a taste of Alan Baker, UNTHINKABLE THOUGHTS, and the dishevelment of jingles jangling through the course of time becomes not only background noise but also the dawning of a fresh perspective.

This slim volume ends with Young's idea of eternity, an appropriate ending when one learns of editor Ian Robinson's recent passing. Young contracts and redefines time:

	When there was no before,
	the universe, being an atom wide,
	could be crossed in no time at all
	. . .
	there was neither time no place.
	you and they and me could not exist
	save together, a universe apart,
	forevr touching, never touched.