NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

The chatty, slightly puckish editorial or "introduction" as it's less formally headed here, sets the tone for the aggregate mood of the poems which follow, many of which have a colloquial, ghoulish or humourous aspect. Not that I'm implying the poems are slight. On the contrary, most of the poems are trying to do something interesting or original and many of them succeed.

The opening poem by John West explores his disquiet at the death of a girl he hardly knew but

	cannot remember or forget 

	not your name or face
	just the way you died

Duane Locke's four poems come across as slightly surreal parables of uncertain application, a little like Jacques Prevert. They work pretty well with an ingenuous oddness. An interesting writer with a distinct approach.

Another poet whose work is an imaginative flight of fancy is T. Kretz whose stream of consciousness poem I LOOKED HER UP IN THE DICTIONARY contains much in the way of original thoughts. Free-flowing energy thrown down on the page doesn't necessarily make great poetry but it makes an entertaining read none-the-less.

Black humour is well to the fore. Rick Kennett's THE RICHEST MAN IN THE CEMETERY is one example :

	a tomb with a view
	a grave with its own backyard.
	There he sleeps in satin comfort
	With pockets in his shroud.

	there are failures to live to live up to.
	They're rare but cinematic: a lock fails
	The coffin slips out of the back,
	And the hearse drives on;

	concertinas
	of larvae to play after-dinner music
	to the left hand side of my brain.

	Cigarettes are too expensive —
	Public taxes, corporate greed.
	Sometimes when I'm feeling pensive
	Cigarettes are what I need.

Taken as a whole though, Braquemard presents poetry of a good standard and with a clear editorial bias in favour of visual imagery, humour, energy and towards the fantastic and surreal imagination, and which supports its regular contributors by allowing space for several of their poems.

It deserves to be among those poetry magazines that survive for some years to come.

This is a literary magazine with very definite ideas about the sort of material it wishes to publish. Editor David Allenby wants to see poetry and short prose which shows

bad taste, black humour and [investigates] the sick side of human nature.

This issue is poetry only and EAST LONDON, 1888 by Suzanne Burns is a suitably Gothic example of the sort of thing Braquemard likes, written, as it is, from the point of view of the women murdered by Jack the Ripper:

	And they never knew your proper name
	To carve on marble pedestals and shatter
	Like the pillars of an ancient place.
	When you interred us, all of Whitechapel,
	With only the fuel of your internal cutting,
	Ripped, and unraveled at the seams,
	For one-hundred years our grainy pictures
	Blown-up and analyzed, how you laid
	Us gently on the ground, sliced
	Silent smiles across our mouths,
	Arranged our viscera like sweets lifted
	From the sticky velvet beneath our ribs,
	The valentines of our hearts carrying
	The secret of your initials to our graves.

	the  chemicals twitch the tubing,
	a quiver takes the audience
	as the inmate  gasps loudly, twice,

	his skin yellows, his lips
	go blue and his eyes,  my god, his eyes
	wide open. This is it. 

	the latch of cripplegate drops crooked into place
	above a clockface staring blankly from the stocks
	as never's ropehand rings the chapel bell
	& reads the brailleblack bible of the gravestone

	& the rope is plaited round thirteenly
	& the windpipe pipes the sweetest descant
	& the barrel-organ wheezes out its marche funebre
	till our stretched man makes a noise of nothing

	(till oh utterly & utterly
	the song syringe lies broken
	in the cold black gutter of the vein)
	
	in death's impassive face
	the hanged man now ejaculates
	a spray of glitter, dust & ground-up pills

	while all the time a funeral oration for the living
	rings like starlight thru the upper window
	& vibrates the christmas lights, like bells.

	Do I stink?
	Can you smell the blood
	between my legs?

 
	The most corrupt
	profession in the world
	A job for sneaky
	little shits and
	greedy ego-maniacs.

However, despite such occasional lapses Braquemard is still one of the most interesting magazines around. David Allenby clearly has a very distinct editorial vision. All one can do is hope that, in future issues, he'll continue to provide a platform for worthy poems about the Jack the Rippers and Timothy McVeighs of this world and send any po-faced anti-Castro Cubans (or such like), who happen to come his way, straight to the waste-paper basket without a moment's hesitation.

The first thing to note is that this issue will be the last to carry prose (in this case by DF Lewis). The editor, David Allenby, also admits that there is no discernible theme to this issue — so this reviewer will not attempt to find one! Thirty two poets are featured and old mono illustrations decorate some of the pages.

All the poems are worth reading but of particular note is David Angel's OMBLIGO, a perceptive and slightly dark insightful look at birth where

	I floated like a dreaming diver.
	I was safe, I was inside the barrel.
	My flavours developed like wine.

This is a lively and well wrought issue — recommended.