Does the Devil lie at the heart of the creative process? In The Devil as Muse, Fred Parker offers an entirely fresh reflection on the age-old question, echoing William Blake's famous statement: "the true poet is of the Devil's party." Expertly examining three literary interpretations of the Devil and his influence upon the artist--Milton's Satan ......
'Written against the background of pandemic isolation Robyn's elegant diverse and spare book immediately captures the reader's attention with its deeply felt individual observations of nature and human experience expertly crafted in poetic forms and prose that prompt reflection and the joy of rereading.' - Janet Howie
'If each life is a world what is a world of billions of lives? Sweeping through evolutionary time through the passage of ages Rosanna Licari's Earlier looks back applies its forensic gaze to an insistent pervasive history of births and creations human and other. Weaving threads and connections Licari's poems investigate rich and ......
Over the centuries philosophers artists writers and musicians have conveyed the therapeutic value and beauty of the world around us. In his beautiful 'On the Grasshopper and Cricket' John Keats claims 'The poetry of earth is never dead.' The harsh beauty of our desert landscape is captured by Douglas Stewart. In 'The Fierce Land' he says ......
'James Walton handles words like a jeweller handles a blue diamond. In each of his books we are transported into a linguistic heaven. Snail Mail Cursive is no exception; an eloquent gorgeous collection in which one is invited into a private world made universal. Whether the subject is life death authors songwriters landscape or ......
'Alex Hand makes the ordinary extraordinary in his latest collection penned during the pandemic. He says himself in "Self-portrait" "I find beauty in polished floorboards and in our Brown Betty teapot." With an unusual abundance of time in lockdown who hasn't found themself back in childhood with seemingly infinite time to contemplate a ......
As a child I drove my mother to distraction with my never-ending stream of 'Whys?' I knew I had reached the end of her patience when she answered with 'Why? Because.' My stream of questions has never run dry rather I have learned over long years to accept that most things have only a temporary answer because more and new information and ......
'Of course Whale-shocked is about whales the shocking history of whaling and our changing attitudes to it. Written as a remarkable long-form poem Sue Aldred uses her own family history from the 1800s when her ancestor sailed on the killer boats at a time when whales were seen only as a resource there for the plunder through to ......
Many of Schubert's six hundred songs were composed quickly and often in the midst of of a gathering of friends loudly revelling or performing other music. Sometimes that remarkable facility would be exercised while walking in company through the woods round Vienna. John Watson has composed a sequence of scenes from this prodigious working life ......
