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Keystone is a slim booklet of poems by British poets and has a cover photograph in black and white by Lawrence Clark. With the publication of Keystone, the editor is hoping to attract submissions of poetry, prose, translations, critical reviews and essays, both from Britain and abroad and information on the magazine's web page is included in the magazine.

This first issue contains the work of nine poets. Some of these are familiar names in Britain: Tony Curtis, Richard Caddel and David Caddy, whilst other names are less well known. Lucy Newlyn offers two poems with heavy themes: domestic violence and prostitution, but handles them with a deft touch. She shows an economy of style though the best poems offer more by way of implication or vividness. Tony Curtis is good in QUILT

	the stitch-raised edges
	of everything
	joined and still

S. C. Gordon is good on the lesson learned by a girl visiting a museum, and in VIEW OF CUPID, writes, possibly about the same girl, as she views a statue of Cupid with her partner, who takes solace in the loneliness of the stone figure:

	She holds a cigarette between her lips
	and says again, 'Romance is dead'
	as if he hadn't heard her first time round.

	He says, sardonic — 'Yes, you said'
	and scuffs his toe into the ground.

Richard Caddel's sequence of poems reads a bit flatly, but this seems to be deliberate. Boundaries, borders, wonderment, sea birds and sea scapes are his subjects, and the tone is one of studied nonchalance as in BREAKER:

	This is land, we know it
	And it breaks our step.
	There is grey sea.

	You look as if you've been crying,
	but you haven't particularly.
	It's only ageing:

	Her eyes slide along the words and over him

	Emptied they fell into clusters,
	huddled like layabouts,
	coupling and clinking
	and pulling towards
	some new understanding.

Keystone is an ambitious magazine based in Oxford. In its third issue, which contains poetry and one prose text, there are a few very well known names, like U. A. Fanthorpe and Bernard O'Donoghue. This number is dedicated to the memory of poet Richard Caddel who passed away in the spring of 2003. Tom Chivers, editor of Keystone, quotes some lines from Caddel's poem SIX WORKERS ON THE NORTHUMBRIAN COAST IN THE DARK BETWEEN LAND AND SEA, printed in the first issue of this publication (2002). In the light of the poet's recent demise, the beautiful quotation assumes some additional, sad significance:

	We are
	on an edge, knowing it's our
	livelihood. Somewhere
	a pale moon rises, we're
	at boundaries talking and breathing.

Lucy Newlyn's LANDSCAPE NEAR OTLEY is a skilfully painted verbal picture with

	All but the drabbest pigment drained away,
	 . . . 
	but a few pale drabs for the sheep
	under the thin, wandering diagonal
	belt of dry-stone wall,
	where the threadbare grain of the high fells
	meets the flat grey wash of sky.

S. C. Gordon's prose piece ANGELO ANGELO begins with the remarkable sentence:

Angelo Angelo's day starts at about eight thirty when he rises from his white double bed, kisses the feet of the Virgin, and sips the remnants of last night's last drink.

All this seems to promise a bright future for Keystone. But, to be honest, I must add that I find the diction in several if not all of the poems a little bland, a little conventional and uninspiring. In spite of this, Keystone appears to have the capacity — in purely literary terms — to develop into an unusually sophisticated little magazine.

Presents itself casually as "an irregular poetry magazine", but presents those poems well and attracts quality contributors, eg Rupert Loydell's NEW YORK LETTERS

	...though that fence
	of shirts and flowers, messages
	and flags got to me a bit. As did
	the chips and scars on the buildings
	all around. I’m glad I went up
	the towers once, but like everybody
	else these days, I don’t want to
	go that high. Basement stores
	and dimlit bars are good enough...

	...But we must fall. The sun that strokes the wings
	Of feathered birds illuminates us too,
	But it is too bright for thought. We lose the things
	We love in our brief flight, and then the glue
	That holds our minds together melts. We sing:
	And then the cool dark sea wraps us in blue.

	...Grey pebble
	You are the night butterfly
	Hand singing blind
	Strobe-sudden drawn
	Know me always
	And I will open my hand.