NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

Spin has the look of an slightly unpretentious little magazine, but is in fact quite sprightly.

On front and back covers are b&w photographs by Michael Dean taken in Cyprus. The back one shows a pair of sunglasses on a table across which lies the shadow of a branch and beyond is a seemingly deserted lane, but tyre-tracks tell of recent traffic. The cover shows a picture of a plaster life-size figure of a fullsome female, nude but for a drapery across her thighs, propped up against a telegraph post, binbags at her feet, in front of a café called The Useless Take Away.

Whilst most of the contributors are from New Zealand, there is a nice number from elsewhere, including R.L. Cook the veteran Scottish poet, who writes about his great aunt (1846-1934):

	Though doused and candle-snuffed long since.
	From the far side of never still I hear
	You castigate and scorn the righteous sinners.
	The small and narrow swindlers and the phonies.
	...
		... you scold in arabesques of fire
	The sleaze and decadence that you perceived,
	Rarer in your day, commonplace in ours.

	COWWORLD, WOODWORLD, SHEEPWORLD
	one day it'll be something Universe,
	& mean even less

	The brook babbled
	The brook is built of babbling
			no babble
	And the brook
		well what would be the brook
			removed from babble?

So useful at barbecues, sizzling the sausages to perfection. She used to singe the aphids off the roses, but our insurance company said our policy did not cover this.

SPIN is a quality paperback literary journal, edited by Owen Bullock, and published biannually in New Zealand. It is a handsomely-made publication, clearly and attractively formatted throughout, with colour illustrations on both covers (no artwork is included inside this issue). New poetry accounts for the bulk of the material published, with most of the fifty contributors being represented here by one or two poems only. There are also nine short intelligent reviews of new poetry collections, and a page of other titles, including journals received. It is, on these terms alone, a good resource, and an interesting read.

The styles of poetry published here vary considerably. I thought Tony Beyer's two short pieces, ADAM and TITANIA AND BOTTOM almost faultless. Here is a truncated version of the latter poem, which explains how the two characters,

	are each how the other
	imagines the opposite sex

	...

	he has whiskers
	and ticks in his
	nose and ears
	and rude
	mechanical extremities

	dawn parade
	old soldiers
	dropping poppies