My latest
review for
Tears in the Fence is of '
The Salvation Engine' by
Rupert Loydell:
" With this collection, as with all his work, Loydell wants to challenge his readers to think about what language is and how ‘it is used around and indeed against us’, as ‘language is how we think about and construct the world’."
Tears in the Fence is an internationalist literary magazine based in the U.K. Publishing a variety of contemporary writers from around the world, it provides critical reviews of recent books, anthologies and pamphlets and essays on a diversity of significant modern and contemporary English and American poets. Each issue features a number of regular columnists adding wide focus and independent thought on the contemporary poetry world. A wide range of book and pamphlet reviews are also published on the magazine’s blog.
My poetry reviews for Stride include a
review of two poetry collections, one by
Mario Petrucci and the other by
David Miller, a
review of
Temporary Archive: Poems by Women of Latin America, a
review of
Fukushima Dreams by
Andrea Moorhead, a
review of
Endangered Sky by
Kelly Grovier and
Sean Scully, a
review of
John F. Deane's
Selected & New Poems, a
review of
God's Little Angel by
Sue Hubbard and a
review of
Spencer Reece's
'Acts'.
To read my poems published by Stride, click
here,
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here. My poems published in
Amethyst Review are:
'Runwell',
'Are/Are Not',
'Attend, attend' and
'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'. My latest poem, '
The ABC of creativity', has been published by
International Times. It cover attention, beginning and creation and can be read
here.
I am very pleased to be among those whose poetry has been included in
Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a new anthology forthcoming in 2024 from
Amethyst Press. Check in at
Amethyst Review for more details, including a publication date in July and an online launch and reading in September. I also had a poem included in
All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first
Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.
'Five Trios' is a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the
Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:
These poems have been published by
Amethyst Review and
International Times.
Additionally, several of my short stories have been published by
IT including three about
Nicola Ravenscroft's
EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at
St Andrew's Wickford last Autumn. The first story in the series is '
The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is
'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is '
The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are '
The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, '
The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and '
The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.
For more on poetry, read my
ArtWay interview with David Miller
here and my
interview with the poet
Chris Emery for International Times
here. My
review of
'Modern Fog' by
Chris Emery is on
Tears in the Fence. I have also written an
article for
Seen & Unseen 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.
Stride magazine was founded in 1982. Since then it has had various incarnations, most recently in an online edition since the late 20th century. You can visit its earlier incarnation at
http://stridemagazine.co.uk.
I have read the poetry featured in Stride and, in particular, the work of its editor
Rupert Loydell over many years and was very pleased that Rupert gave a
poetry reading when I was at
St Stephen Walbrook.
Rupert Loydell is a poet, painter, editor and publisher, and senior lecturer in English with creative writing at Falmouth University. He is interested in the relationship of visual art and language, collaborative writing, sequences and series, as well as post-confessional narrative, experimental music and creative non-fiction.
He has edited Stride magazine for over 30 years, and was managing editor of Stride Books for 28 years. His poetry books include Wildlife and Ballads of the Alone (both published by Shearsman), and The Fantasy Kid (for children).
His latest collections are
Damage Limitation and
The Salvation Engine.
Reviewing both collections,
Dominic Rivron writes that:
"Damage Limitation is part of Loydell’s ongoing investigation into cults and obsession. It begins with a brief, potted history of the band Throbbing Gristle and Genesis P-Orridge’s subsequent venture, Psychic TV, outlining the way both bands managed their public image, pressing ‘all the obvious buttons’ to portray themselves as provocative, transgressive and offensive; while all the time Genesis P-Orridge ‘wanted to control everything, despite their questioning the very notion of power and control’.
The hypnotic lure of TG and PTV lies in ‘the counterculture’s desire for psychic understanding’, while, in fact, the whole project is a microcosm of capitalism, its ‘industrial music revolution’ holding up a mirror to the Industrial (non-musical) Revolution. And the machines we build are not merely physical: the processes whereby people can groom, control and abuse others could be described as a form of psychic machine-building."
"The Salvation Engine ... which came out before Damage Limitation, ‘grapples with the frightful mix of personality cults, religious populism, liturgical experiment, rave culture, censorship, puritanical mindlessness, and stupidity within the organised church, questioning and critiquing its power structures and beliefs, not to mention a lack of safeguarding and accountability, which allow and sometimes encourage abuse, manipulation, greed and desperate beliefs to thrive.’"
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