Category Archives: reviews (some antique)

Micro-reviews (4): Two Tongues

Posted on May 2, 2022 by W N Herbert

Two Tongues, Claudine Toutoungi (Carcanet), £10.99 – NB currently 10% discount on site Another ‘brief sentence’ that got away from me – perhaps because I’m always very impressed by poets who’ve worked out – as Claudine Toutoungi has in just … Continue reading →

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Micro-reviews (3): billy casper’s tears

Posted on May 1, 2022 by W N Herbert

Paul Summers, billy casper’s tears (Smokestack) £7.99 Next up in the ‘Just give us a sentence – please! Stop! Please – just a sentence will do! Please just stop!’-that-turned-into-a-review-anyway category is this appraisal of Paul Summer’s new book, published May … Continue reading →

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Micro-reviews (2): Desperate Fishwives

Posted on April 15, 2022 by W N Herbert

Here’s another enthusiastic response to being asked to read a book, this time one by the very fine Lindsay MacGregor, who first studied then taught at Dundee Uni, who hosts the Ladybank Platform readings, is part of StAnza’s constellation of … Continue reading →

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Imagining Imagined Spaces

Posted on April 12, 2022 by W N Herbert

This review of a book of essays exploring the range of forms possible within creative critical thinking was supposed to appear in a briefer form sometime last year but, for whatever reason, did not. It acts as a sort of … Continue reading →

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A The Poetry Review review

Posted on April 9, 2022 by W N Herbert

So complete is the lacuna created by the pandemic that, when it comes to the microcosm of poetry, entire books were swallowed up by it like Keaton’s famous shot in The General of the titular train steaming off the blown-up … Continue reading →

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Micro-reviews (1): Haurd Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds

Posted on April 7, 2022 by W N Herbert

(Translations into Scots from Du Fu and Li Bai by Brian Holton, Taproot Press, 2021) I’ve been meaning for a while to post a few of the micro-reviews I always end up writing whenever I’m asked for ‘a sentence or … Continue reading →

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Pies, Poute, and the Poetry Mills of Victorian Dundee

Posted on October 28, 2017 by W N Herbert

It might make some sense to resume this blog where it left off, with a further reference to the ongoing work on Dundee writing in the 19th century. At the Dundee Literary Festival the other week, Professor Kirstie Blair and … Continue reading →

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Origins, Grafts, Whispers

Posted on January 19, 2017 by W N Herbert

(As will hopefully become apparent over the next few weeks, one of my ‘resolutions’ for January 2017 was to get my act together with the backlog of posts for this and my other blogs. At the end of the month … Continue reading →

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Patterned and Paired

Posted on May 21, 2016 by W N Herbert

(This review appeared in the Spring 2016 Poetry London. This is a slightly longer version – by two bonus paragraphs – with a proofing error corrected. (Instead of the lemniscate itself, ‘∞’, we read ‘[insert infinity symbol]’, which is in … Continue reading →

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New Cartographies for Old

Posted on February 4, 2016 by W N Herbert

(An edited version of this review appeared in the Summer 2015 issue of Poetry London.) Sandeep Parmar, Eidolon (Shearsman); Sam Riviere, Kim Kardashian’s Wedding (Faber & Faber); Tony Williams, The Midlands (Nine Arches Press). These three collections in their different … Continue reading →

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