Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
An Astráil: With Denise O'Hagan
Fotoula Reynolds
The Sunday visits Pretty dress on Hair tied up with Daisy pins in Leather shoes Polished and She is ready Ready as a...
An Astráil: With Denise O'Hagan
5 Poems by James Walton
Modern love tales I’ll put on After the Gold Rush, Sgt Peppers, Blue how much a graph of me this gives is best...
An Astráil: With Denise O'Hagan
2 Poems from Randolph Stow Young Writers Awardee, Rosie Bogumil
THE ROADMAP My body is a roadmap, Of white ridges, undulating hills and Curves of red, mingling with slashes of grey, As if a...
An Astráil: With Denise O'Hagan
Slide into The DMs. By Erin Francis
FRESH FACES Hello there, may I enquire whether or not you’d like to invest in a face? I’ve many spare and can easily...
An Astráil: With Denise O'Hagan
Solo Spooning & Transcendence. Anni Coyne
SOLO SPOONING & TRANSCENDENCE In the whispering silences of post-midnight solitude Where ghosts of rampant angst are pulled and stretched in Munch-like menace...
An Astráil: With Denise O'Hagan
Otherwise Occupied. by Richard James Allen
OTHERWISE OCCUPIED You think I am not listening but I am just not listening to you I am trained to keep listening ...
An Astráil: With Denise O'Hagan
Featured Poet, Anne Casey
AFTER MAKING LOVE WITH THE LIGHTS ON, DOORS WIDE OPEN resting my head on your shoulder when you said there is no...
An Astráil: With Denise O'Hagan
Poetry by E.A Gleeson
This sky we share Just-built houses stretch upwards lunging at ocean views angling out inlanders blocking older shacks shading neighbouring yards. ...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Absence Eased by Edward Lee
Edward Lee -Absence Eased My daughter lives forty-eight kilometres from me in the house I bought with her mother, the house I still own; the...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Sandra Arnold. The Meeting of Tahr Minds
We met the group next morning and shared the 4w drive of our guide, David, for our trip to Wadi Sareen Wildlife Reserve, about...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Poems as Time Machines by John D. Kelly
This Petty Pace If tomorrow is now where did time go? Was...
An Astráil: With Denise O'Hagan
Monsoon and other Poems by Glenn Whalan
MONSOON Hard buckshot comes the rain, the first monsoon rain, the first ever real rain for months. All conversation dies, all plans are...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Poetry from the Winner of British Haiku Award 2017
Deer Medicine In night white with birch and moon your heart hears hooves crossing its wide plateau a slow steady pulse keeping...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Public Decree. Poetrry by Peter Cowlam
PUBLIC DECREES All is transparency, rose red in the black white squares of dawn, a pale electric in an afternoon...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Christopher Hopkins. Poetry
NavigatorA hawk head of a sun.Neck line & forearms,wind hushed redfrom the grip of the unexpected heat. I watch youin this flipped world.Navigator.Stargazer of the flicker...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Poetry by Angela Costi
INCIDENT IN AISLE 5 I was almost as tall as the shopping trolley, I could see up and through its bars...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Theme for Arthur
THEME FOR ARTHUR And, As close as poetry can take you To the heart of any matter, Never trust A French symbolist poet...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
4 Poems from an emerging poet.
LONG-HAUL No water-bottles now – to reduce single-use plastic, offset aviation fuel. My gut’s like a wind-sock. I panic for my passport, ask for...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
3 Poems from Rona Fitzgerald
Womankind In my Irish childhood, men were at work. Children and women had the run of the house. Street life flourished....
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Anne Casey’s out of emptied cups -Reviewed
Emma Lee reviews Anne Casey's out of emptied cups. As well as her position of Reviews Editor for The Blue Nib. Emma Lee writes regular reviews for The Journal, The High Window Journal, London Grip and Sabotage and ad hoc reviews for other publications. Her collection “Ghosts in the Desert” is available from Indigo Dreams Publishing. A pamphlet “Mimicking a Snowdrop” was published by Thynks Press in 2014 and her full-length collection, “Yellow Torchlight and the Blues” has been published by Original Plus.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
a-BIRTH-a-DAY by Alan Corkish – Reviewed
a-BIRTH-a-DAY by Alan Corkish Original Plus ISBN 9780995580299, 400pp, £14.95) After a discussion about writers’ block, Alan Corkish set himself the task of writing a poem...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Fair Ground by Penny Sharman – Reviewed
The well-titled Fair Ground by Penny Sharman, is an exploration of childhood realised through an array of poetic forms, opens with the cascading free-verse...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Bill Cushing’s A Former Life – Reviewed
Richard Lance Keeble reviews Bill Cushing's A Former Life. Richard, a regular reviewer for The Blue Nib is a Professor of Journalism at the University of Lincoln and Visiting Professor at Liverpool Hope University. He has written and edited 40 books on a wide range of media-related subjects. The chair of the Orwell Society, he is the joint editor of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics and George Orwell Studies. In 2011, he gained a National Teaching Fellowship, the highest award for teachers in Higher Education in the UK and in 2014 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Association for Journalism Education. In 2020, Routledge are to publish a collection of his essays under the title, Journalism Beyond Orwell.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Ruth Stacey’s How to Wear Grunge – Reviewed
The speaker in Ruth Stacy’s How to Wear Grunge (2018) is a struggling female poet who is heavy, hung-over and coming down. The poems...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Setareh Ebahimi In My Arms – Reviewed
Setareh Ebrahimi is the most sensual of writers. To enter her world is to navigate a region of heightened sensation and dizzying intimacy. The mood of In My Arms is breathless, deathless, hushed, brimming with imagery that engages and intoxicates the senses.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
David Cooke’s Reel To Reel – Reviewed.
Carla Scarano D’Antonio reviews David Cooke's Reel To Reel for The Blue Nib. Carla moved to England (Lancashire then Surrey) in 2007 from Rome (Italy) and started attending creative writing courses. She obtained a Degree of Master of Arts in Creative Writing with Merit at Lancaster University in October 2012. Her work was published in Shipwrights (an online Swedish Review), Purple Patch, First Edition magazine, Northern Life, audio Flax Anthologies: Vanishing Act (Flax 020), Flash Mob (Flax 026), Cake, the Beautiful Dragons Anthologies Heavenly Bodies and My Dear Watson, London Grip, Lighthouse, South and Poetry News. She self-published a poetry pamphlet, A Winding Road, in 2011 and won the First Prize of the John Dryden Translation Competition 2016. The prize was awarded for translation of some poems by Eugenio Montale that Keith Lander and Carla co-translated. She publishes recipes, travel journals and opinions on her blog: carlascarano.blogspot.co.uk/ She is currently working on a PhD on Margaret Atwood’s work at the University of Reading.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
and my heart crumples like a coke can – Reviewed
Ali Whitelock’s, and my heart crumples like a coke can reviewed by Ada Wofford. Along with being a Contributing Editor to the Blue Nib, Ada Wofford is bravely avoiding her inevitable 9-5 enslavement by studying library science at UW-Madison. She holds a BA in English literature and has been published in number of journals.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Raymond Antrobus The Perseverance -Reviewed
Raymond Antrobus, The Perseverance reviewed by Richard Lance Keeble for The Blue Nib. Richard Lance Keeble is Professor of Journalism at the University of Lincoln and Visiting Professor at Liverpool Hope University. He has written and edited 40 books on a wide range of media-related subjects. The chair of the Orwell Society, he is the joint editor of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics and George Orwell Studies. In 2011, he gained a National Teaching Fellowship, the highest award for teachers in Higher Education in the UK and in 2014 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Association for Journalism Education. In 2020, Routledge are to publish a collection of his essays under the title, Journalism Beyond Orwell.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Poetry by P.C Vandall
PLATO AND THE PEPSI CHALLENGE Plato frowns up at me from the pages of a dusty old textbook I’m reading. He looks the...
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Poet, Megan Purvis
Meghan Purvis's translation of Beowulf was published in 2013 and won the 2011 Times Stephen Spender Prize for literary translation.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Poetry by Guinotte Wise
Guinotte Wise writes and welds steel sculpture on a farm in Resume Speed, Kansas.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
So, What if Mental Hospitals. Dorie LaRue.
Dorie LaRue is the author of two novels, three chapbooks of poetry, a full-length collection of poetry.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Bhodi Tims: In Search of Blue
Bhodi Tims' The Acoustic Properties of Ancient People was published by Finishing Line Press.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Be Careful What You Ask For. John Patrick Robbins
John Patrick Robbins .
Is the editor of both The Rye Whiskey Review and Under The Bleachers .
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
George Franklin, Poetry
George Franklin's Traveling for No Good Reason was the winner of the Sheila-Na-Gig Editions competition in 2018
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Stephen Schwei. Poetry
Stephen Schwei is a Houston poet with Wisconsin roots, published in Wax Poetry & Art, Beneath the Rainbow, Hidden Constellation, Borfski Press, and the New Reader Magazine.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Isobel Cunningham. Summer On The Canadian Shield
Isobel Cunningham's poetry has appeared in Rat's Ass Review, The Lake and Silver Birch Literary Review.
Issue 39 | Sept 2019 |
Combustion- Carly Heider
Combustion This Virginia heat is killing me. 90° and things begin to simmer. 91° and things get hazy. I stand...
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The end is nigh and parting is indeed such sweet sorrow
As an awful years ends, we bid you farewell.
Dave Kavanagh, Managing Editor of The Blue Nib celebrates the readers, writers, contributors and editors who have made the last five years so very special.
Talking Heads
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The Critical Nib: With Emma Lee
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