 Shearsman 58 Velwell Road Exeter EX4 4LD UK £7.50 Subscriptions: 2 dble-issues £12 [Europe £14; RoW £15] cheques payable to "Shearsman Books" email Shearsman visit Shearsman's website read reviews of earlier issues Before commenting on this review please read the FAQ page Home page Notes for publishers Want to be a reviewer? Anthologies. Books. Audio. Magazines. Software. Video. Artefacts. Web design by Gerald England This page last updated: 3rd August 2005. |
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Shearsman has recently undergone some radical changes in shape and size, explained by Tony Frazer in his editorial. Due to costs the magazine will now be published twice yearly, produced in book size and providing twenty more pages than previously. These twenty pages will be used to showcase Shearsman Books own authors as well as submissions. To set them on the twice yearly track, this edition and the next (due out in October or November 2005) are double editions. Changes have also been made to the magazine's appearance on line; only half the content will now be made available, one month after publication. This practical matter aside, Shearsman offers poetry with an international provenance, eclectic, wide in scope and diverse in form. I found all of the poetry immensely readable, fresh and challenging. It was a pleasure to explore the rich possibilities each of the contributors offer and stimulating to find such a distinctive platform for contemporary poetry. The NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS at the end of the volume are very helpful for those who have enjoyed particular poets and would like to read more. It seems almost inappropriate to highlight particular poets and poems in this edition, but there are some who, for me, deserve mention and will hopefully show the wide-ranging axis Shearsman exhibits. Sarah Law's MEDITATION TOPICS FOR WOMEN is one of three poems published here. A wry and humorous play on female etiquette, written in a series of twelve questions for the sisters. We might assume the sisters to be nuns, but the title seems to widen this to women, as members of the sisterhood. In a controlled, yet playful, deadpan tone the questions explore what is and what is not appropriate in certain, unusual circumstances, for example: 4. If one suspects a sister has red wine in her cell, should one visit her in the hope of being offered a glass?or, my favourite, 8. If a sister should levitate, is it prudent to take photographs?The word prudent registers here; a sense in which wisdom and care should be taken in exposing this unusual capability in a sister. These are not dilemmas most of us would be faced with. Indeed, it is the questions themselves that we scrutinise, raising another question, namely, who is being asked for the answer? Is it themselves the sisters ask these questions of, or a higher power? On one level we might decide that the questions the poem asks are rhetorical, particularly as we read the latter lines, which take on the tone of an old joke, ending with: 12. HOW MANY PALM CROSSES DOES IT TAKE TO BUILD A WORKABLE TWO-SISTER RAFT?There is something very recognisable in the poem's tone of language, revealing the uncertainties women feel in unfamiliar circumstances and women's use of the collective to discuss the way forward and find a mutual solution. Notions of being watched, of behaving appropriately, ideas of women's power and use of it are wrestled through in the poem's, almost rhetorical questioning. Sarah Law writes poems which ask to be returned to. Robert Walser's, TO GEORGE TRAKL, is translated by Christopher Middleton, one of six poets translated in this edition. It is a poem of intimate, subtle tones evoking melancholy, but also hope and homage for poetry. This is charged with the belief that the poet lives on after death, living and present within their poetry. The question of Being and the search for the truth of the poetic is a legacy, the whispered secret of fate at birth given from Hölderlin to Trakl, following the long line of great, German poets to which Walser pays homage: DID SOME PERPETUATION OF THE FATE OF HÖLDERLIN REVERBERATE AROUND YOUR CRADLE AND KEEPING YOU COMPANY, AS LIFE WENT ON, DOOM YOU AT LAST TO GOLDEN LUNACY?Although DOOMED the LUNACY is GOLDEN, bright, precious and valuable. Poets in pursuit of truth risk this LUNACY and take receptive readers, as it does with Walser, to this experience, as the closing lines show: YOUR POEMS, WHEN I READ THEM, MORE AND MORE CARRY ME AWAY AS IN A SPLENDID COACH AND FOUR.This poem is a wonderful homage which embraces poetry and poets simultaneously. THEATRE OF PSYCHODIALYSIS by Gad Hollander is a work in progress. This extract explores BLACK LOVE in verse and prose, responding to four lines from the Russian poet, Nikolay Gumilyov, where we read, THE GROANS OF LOVE WILL BE THE GROANS OF TORTURE.This bitter-sweet exploration reveals the ambiguities of love, language and poetry and the underlying qualities of love linked with torture and pleasure. It is a brilliant and complex piece with some memorable phrases: I SUFFER BUT I ENJOY THE PAIN. SUFFERING IS MY AMBROSIA; I SAVOUR IT WITH A SENSE OF PURPOSE — TO OVERCOME PAIN.and: TORTURE IS POETIC, A DISCOURSE OF AMBIGUITY RISING THROUGH A WELLSPRING OF PAIN. VICTIM OR PERPETRATOR, WE IDENTIFY WITH IT COMPLETELY, ACCEPT ITS FRISSION, SETTLE INTO ITS ANTICIPATION.The act of poetry and the poetic act is linked to torture and pain, but the corporeal and physical act of love and its pleasures are made part of this, connecting this shared experience of humanity from around the globe. This, again, is poetry which asks to be returned to. All of the poetry in this edition of Shearsman is interesting and unique. For those who enjoy the challenges of demanding poetry, who enjoy having to work hard at their reading and to read contributions from international poets, Shearsman will not disappoint. Shearsman's achievement is that it contains good poetry without seeming to be stuffy or academic or unapproachable, I recommend it and look forward to the next issue. | ||
| reviewer: Irene Hossack |