Newly published

Ditching the Guff is a work of contemplation and celebration. It is a collection of memories and experiences, skilfully juxtaposed to contrast and elaborate, to jolt and explain. It is the work of a mature poet who presents a chronology of her life with humour, wisdom, sympathy, and acceptance. 

There is no attempt to untangle the confusion of lived experience: it is presented as it is known, in all its glorious, inexplicable, unlikely disarray.

Ink & Blood & Nicotine is a deeply personal and affecting collection which turns an unflinching eye on the issues of modern society, finding refuge in the words and songs which offer understanding and comfort.

Urukalo Franov examines her world with a confronting directness, but leavens her poetry with humour and sympathy. At times chaotic and with the wild energy of creative thought, these poems will introduce you to a bold, new poetic voice, but will leave you to answer its questions as best you can.

Seven is a rich and complex collection of poetry by noted US poet, David Wolf. The title refers to the seven voicings or personas that make up the collection. Remarkably, the different voicings of the poems are conspicuously distinct and treat of different experiences and perspectives, but the seven sections unite to create a unified work.

Wolf's poetry is intriguing and challenging, but not obscure; deeply personal and intense, but also veined with humor and sympathy. The poetry is rich in imagery and simultaneously dense and playful in meaning. This is an important collection, and one to enjoy reading and re-reading.

Nick Crowley's collection, "Which way is that thing I don't like?", is a clinically precise introduction to the baffling world we inhabit. Every everyday moment seems to offer its own juxtaposition: a shadow, a reflection, a mirror image.

"At dusk the sharks come closer to shore

i keep an eye out for fins"

The disturbing moment immediately undercut,

"Until i get bored

and earnest concern fades to lusty hope

i pray for a black fin"

Crowley may not offer many definitive answers, but at least you are certain to enjoy the questions...

Bozo's Obstacle is a deeply contemplative celebration of the everyday. Wexler's poetry is personal and reflective, drawing on reminiscence and longing, but placing it firmly in the present, shaping the past to make sense of the now.

This collection is gentle and surprising, laced with humour and acceptance and a deep understanding of the human condition; a condition that seems equal parts humour, sadness, confusion, and wonder.

A portrait artist lives along a road built of the pips and stones from orchard fruit. He watches the other residents come and go and paints portraits of them, imagining their lives.

Each portrait, each story, comes together to form a picture of Cherrystone Lane and reveals who gave the painter a black eye and how the most recent resident was guided to misadventure.

David L Hume has written a gentle, compelling history in a series of short vignettes of the addresses that make up Cherrystone Lane.

Steve Evans' new collection, The Crow on the Cross, Wedding Songs & Others, is collection which examines the social and cultural phenomenon of marriage in ways that are equal parts personal and analytical. 

His poems are both lush and spare. The endless human desire for a partner, an equal, is celebrated and questioned in poems of deep understanding and knowing humour. 

Evans brings all his formidable skill as a poet to a remarkably diverse examination of the topic, at once deeply thoughtful, comfortingly familiar, and perceptively humorous. This mastery of form is continued in the second part of the collection, a miscellany of subjects united by the skill and insight of an accomplished poet.

A play in one act by poet and playwright, Jack Farrugia.

While racing to receive medical attention, two brothers, long disconnected by time and circumstance, confront a shared history and discover the reality of an unknown present.

Salt Flats in Heaven is an exploration of male tenderness and violence, anger and forgiveness. In this tense tragicomedy, Farrugia exposes the wrenching difficulties of two men striving to find and accomplish their purpose.

Rural Ecologies is a collection of haiku united by their subject matter: a love of the natural world and the wonder it inspires. Michael J. Leach embraces contemporary practice in writing these short, contemplative verses 'in the spirit of haiku' rather than trying to contort each poem into three lines while pretending that English syllables can be considered Japanese morae.

This is a thoughtful, sometimes playful, collection that celebrates the resonance of the momentary.