HEAVEN IS A PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTINE SLOAN STODDARD – REVIEW

Posted on September 29, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged art, autofiction, book, christine sloan stoddard, collection, featured, photo, photography, poem, poet, poetry, read women, review, visual arts, women writing, writing.

by Ananya Wilson –Bhattacharya

‘I do not take photos/I give them/as I always give/in love’, the protagonist of Christine Sloan Stoddard’s poetry/photography collection Heaven is a Photograph declares, a characteristically bold admission of vulnerability. These lines, taken from the poem ‘Unrequited Pixels’, evoke an overarching theme of the collection: the emotional intensity of the protagonist’s relationship with photography. Charting the protagonist’s journey, from a childhood as the daughter of a photographer to becoming a photographer herself, Stoddard’s brief and beautiful collection explores the power of both photography and photographer – through a deft and deeply meta combination of verse and photography itself.

REVIEW – THE EMPTY HORIZON, BY PAUL TERENCE CARNEY

Posted on January 31, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged appropriation, author, blindness, collection, featured, female, illness, literature, male, paul terence carney, poem, poetry, point of view, retinitis pigmentosa, review, Roisin, speaking, ventriloquism, voice.

by Carmina Masoliver

I was told that The Empty Horizon was a sequence of poems written in the voice of Roisin, a writer and illustrator of children’s books who is losing her sight due to the genetic condition Retinitis Pigmentosa. Initially, I wondered why – if Rosin is a writer – why she could not write these poems herself. Although it seems obvious that there is a mutual relationship established, why should a man tell the story of a woman who is a writer, and thus capable of writing it herself? Although losing her sight, as a writer, would it not be better to tell her own story through her own spoken words, rather than Carney being the author of this text?Continue Reading

REVIEW: BETTER WATCH YOUR MOUTH, BY JENN HART

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged artivism, better watch your mouth, book, Burning Eye Books, chapbook, collection, family, feminism, gender, growing up, imagery, Jenn Hart, language, performance, poems, poet, poetry, politics, reading, review, spoken word, ugh men, women, women writers, writing.

by Carmina Masoliver

The cover of Better Watch Your Mouth displays a set of lips and teeth pulling the kind of expression you would make after being told such a thing. It suggests an unapologetic rejection of censorship, which is later reflected in the poem ‘Ugh, Men’ with the statement ‘we will not censor ourselves (x3)’.

This is a collection that mixes everyday language with profound metaphor, and beautiful imagery with emotive stories. It begins with the telling of others’ stories and gradually becomes more personal, yet in a way that is also relatable, as time skips back and forth like the mind floating back to memories, some singed with pain and others with nostalgia.

REVIEW: FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, BY NALO HOPKINSON

Posted on April 22, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged #readwomen, Ariel, arts, Bluebeard, book, books, Caliban, Caribbean, collection, Falling in Love with Hominids, hope, Monbiot, Nalo Hopkinson, neoliberalism, possibility, prose, resist, review, Shakespeare, short story, specfic, speculative fiction, stories, Tempest, trees, writing, zombie doctrine.

by Eli Lambe

Hopkinson’s writing is enchanting. Her words wrap around you and inhabit you, they turn your skin to bark, the wind into a goddess, your body lifts and falls with the lines of beautifully crafted prose. To read her work is to be transformed, transported, transcended. Her first novel, Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), explored community, magic, and family in a Toronto “hollowed out” by white-flight and financial catastrophe.

Her second, Midnight Robber (2000), used language — particularly dialect — and mythology to imagine, from a Caribbean perspective, “what stories we’d tell ourselves about our technology – what our paradigms for it might be” and to bring together ideas of storytelling, colonialism and trauma. Since then, she has published several other novels and collections, all of which are thoughtful, accessible and fundamentally affecting, the most recent of which is the subject of this review. Continue Reading

REVIEW: A BOOK OF FRAGMENTS AND DREAMS, REBECCA McMANUS

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged #readwomen, A Book of Fragments and Dreams, alcohol, answers, beginnings, collection, craft, creative writing, dreams, endings, flight, honesty, human nature, in memory, Lewis Buxton, love, midsummer, new release, norfolk, norwich, poems, poetry, poetry collection, questions, read women, Rebecca McManus, review, seasons, swans, time, UEA, UEA Live, unflinching, university, University of East Anglia, Unthank Cameo.

by Lewis Buxton

Despite being called A Book of Fragments and Dreams, the poems in Rebecca McManus’ collection are far from fragmentary. They speak loudly to one another and are rooted decisively in the people, places, and objects of her life. Unthank Cameo has released this collection posthumously after Rebecca McManus was killed by a speeding driver whilst waiting at a bus stop. She was 21 and just weeks away from graduating from the University of East Anglia.Continue Reading

REVIEW: THE GIRL IN THE DOG-TOOTH COAT, BY ZELDA CHAPPEL

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged #readwomen, Bare Fiction, book, closure, collection, elbowroom, grief, hope, human, literature, love, metaphor, personal, poem, poet, poetry, reading, relationship, review, sexism, teen, water, women writers, writing, zelda chappel.

by Carmina Masoliver

A book filled with moths, whiskey and full moons; reading Zelda Chappel’s debut collection The Girl in the Dog-Tooth Coat, published with Bare Fiction (2015), forces you to be in the moment with each and every piece. With each turn of the page comes a fresh clarity and precision, yet still connected like water – at times a stream, and at others, a rushing waterfall. It explores grief, and through its dark and sombre tones, there is a glimmer of hope: that this is a tale of survival.

REVIEW – EMILY HARRISON’S ‘I CAN’T SLEEP ‘CAUSE MY BED’S ON FIRE’

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged #readwomen, arts, BAR, book, Burn After Reading, Burning Eye Books, Carol Ann Duffy, characters, Chardonnay, class, collection, creative writing, critique, domestic violence, Emily Harrison, extrovert, feminism, feminist, gender, home, humour, interview, Jenn Hart, literature, Lolita, love, mental health, page, performance, poem, poet, poetry, Pulp, review, She Grrrowls, stage, TV, Vinnie Jones, women writers, writing.

by Carmina Masoliver

I have seen Emily Harrison share her work countless times at Burn After Reading events, and at my own night, She Grrrowls. She never fails to amaze me in the way she is able to articulate herself, speaking out about mental health issues – amongst other subjects – interwoven with links to gender and class. When I read lines about imaging someone loves you ‘when you simply asked/during a routine blood test, ‘Emily, how are you doing today?’ I sort of imagine she’s what I would be like if I were an extrovert.

The first couple of poems are familiar to me, and it’s hard not to picture Harrison on stage delivering these words, because as much as it’s incredible to be able to read the pieces, seeing them live is an important part of the way the text works, as it tends to be with Burning Eye Books – the go-to publisher for writers who refuse to remain on one side of the page/stage divide.Continue Reading

REVIEW: DICKO/MATTHEW DICKERSON IN YALLOPS

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged arts, collection, colours, dicko, exhibition, fine art, gallery, happiness, hope, illustration, ink, inks, Matthew Dickerson, messages, norwich, Nunns Yard, original art, paintings, positivity, review, sketches, student artist, visual arts, Yallops.

by Carmina Masoliver

Along St Augustine’s Street in Norwich, you will find a collection of gallery spaces that are part of Nunns Yard. These include Nunns Yard itself, Yallops and Thirteen A. They offer small unconventional spaces to exhibit contemporary art work, including a smaller hire fee of £10 per day for students.

During a recent visit to Norwich, I spent some time at Yallops Gallery and saw the private view of Matthew Dickerson’s fine art illustration work. He is known more for digital illustration and concept art, yet this exhibition featured nine framed original hand-painted ink pieces on A3 paper. These were on sale for an affordable price of £150.Continue Reading

DEBRIS STEVENSON — PIGEON PARTY

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged apple and snakes, beauty, body, collection, creative writing, culture, Deborah Stevenson, Debris Stevenson, female poet, flipped eye publishing, gender, heritage, Jamaica, love, misogyny, Nottingham, performance, pigeon party, poem, poetry collection, poetry review, poets, race, review, The Mouthy Poets, women, women writers, words.

by Carmina Masoliver

Deborah ‘Debris’ Stevenson is founder of The Mouthy Poets, based in Nottingham, who are a collective of 50 young poets. A poet herself, with a blurb of incredible achievements, I can’t help but envy her success as someone so near my age (she’s actually younger). Watching from the outside, I can see how much she has grafted to get where she is today, and her enthusiasm for what she does shines through at workshops, performance events, and is inside every well-chosen word on the pages of the Pigeon Party (2014) collection with flipped eye publishing.

Poems are enclosed in two-part poem After The Blackstone Rangers, which sets the scene for the collection. They describe a childhood growing up in cities, where “everyone was learning”, whether rolling cigarettes, or dancing. The words are both familiar and unexpected; a place where love and friendships are based on fun that is “still disposable and warm” — referring to the “can of Scrumpy Jacks”— but also holding a wider resonance, like most of Stevenson’s work.Continue Reading

POETRY HITS THE HEADLINES, BUT IS IT FOR THE RIGHT REASONS?

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged #derangedpoetess, Ahren warner, award, Bloodaxe, books, British, Chinese, collection, creative writing, criticism, family, headline, heritage, Kate Tempest, Katy Evans-Bush, Kei Miller, Loop of Jade, media, MSM, news, Pascale Petit, poem, poems, poet, poetry, racism, Sarah Howe, sexism, T S Eliot, writing.

by Carmina Masoliver

For those who are partial to a bit of poetry, you’ll probably have heard by now that Sarah Howe has been awarded this year’s T.S. Eliot prize by judges Pascale Petit (chair), Kei Miller, and Ahren Warner. You may also have seen this article, which questioned the negative tinge of the criticism of which Howe has received. Katy Evans-Bush argued that these criticisms were more to do with Howe’s age, gender and ethnicity (Howe is of dual Chinese-British heritage). Some seemed baffled both that it was possible to win on a first collection, yet also that it took her ten years to write. Surely the fact that she spent so long producing the poetry might suggest how it became possible to win? I mean, that, or witchcraft.Continue Reading

collection

HEAVEN IS A PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTINE SLOAN STODDARD – REVIEW

by Ananya Wilson –Bhattacharya

REVIEW – THE EMPTY HORIZON, BY PAUL TERENCE CARNEY

REVIEW: BETTER WATCH YOUR MOUTH, BY JENN HART

REVIEW: FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, BY NALO HOPKINSON

REVIEW: A BOOK OF FRAGMENTS AND DREAMS, REBECCA McMANUS

REVIEW: THE GIRL IN THE DOG-TOOTH COAT, BY ZELDA CHAPPEL

REVIEW – EMILY HARRISON’S ‘I CAN’T SLEEP ‘CAUSE MY BED’S ON FIRE’

REVIEW: DICKO/MATTHEW DICKERSON IN YALLOPS

DEBRIS STEVENSON — PIGEON PARTY

POETRY HITS THE HEADLINES, BUT IS IT FOR THE RIGHT REASONS?

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by Ananya Wilson –Bhattacharya