NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

Martin Anderson's BETWEEN epitomises a fairly typical TREMBLESTONE poem, ending

	...Trembling, with all we know
	but cannot name,
	indigo ink
	of nights drawn down upon us
	looking up
 
	only a tutelage of signs
	to ferry us through
	the dark matrix
	of our selves, to what
	constructed place,
	that could welcome us,
	would we come
	determinated, and brief
	held by, no other possessions
	than these.

	For Bill and Monica
 
	The tabloid operatic
	Society are in town
	Working undercover
 
	Harmonica plays
	Washington blues
 
	Harmonica between
	Your lips
	Softly blowing
 
	Dallas meets Dynasty
	On Pennsylvania Avenue
 
	Flashbulb vampires
	Undress night
 
	Sperm on the flag
	While America dreams
 
	The world's a bar 
	Of soap
 
	Slippery
 
	Pull back the bed sheets
	And climb inside the news.

An unappealing cover which thinks it's clever. Inside, the typeface is odd to say the least. On a number of pages the page number is on a line with the last line of script, an error no printer should be allowed to get away with. If Pims Digital of Basildon, Essex were my printer I should also query why on page 62 three out of the five ampersands are in bold. All are of a greater height than any of the type. The editor needs to sack the printer unless he's married to the printer's daughter. Though when we get to the work of Andrew Nightingale I admit my heart bleeds for the typesetter.

As for the poets and their editor Kenny Knight I have the feeling they are all wearing rose coloured glasses. Dare I suggest TREMBLESTONE read EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES if only to read the panda joke. (ISBN 1-86197-612-7). And yes the book title is a deliberate error.

The poetry: this is one line of Josephine Ebert from her long poem THE BLIND VOYEUR:

  I told my philosophy class that and they believed me and so did their wives — ETC.

  Now the darkness prunes around me
  And the seven mystic ships creak in the darkness of my prunes

This is the only poem in the magazine where the title is recognizable as a title. And TREMBLESTONE is riddled with dashes. Not one I would buy. A typesetter's nightmare. But we have to have variety in the world and this is only one person's reaction.