The Digital Nib

Strange how it’s the names of things, the nouns, that leak away. You’d think words that are some of the first we learn – teddy, milk, ball, hat – would be more embedded

Alex Carrigan reviews 'Cyber Smut a collection of short stories and poetry' edited by Julianne Ingles from Guts Publishing https://www.gutspublishing.com $11

They swayed to the beat and sent currents through the room, bumped us into each other, into dances that weren’t quite accidental but seemed that way.

Quinn is a flawless writer. She draws on the materials life has given her to create a pared but visionary poetry.

Irish poet, Leeanne Quinn speaks to Tracy Gaughan about literary history, art as consolation and why she never lets herself away with anything in her poems.

Astrid Cabral’s poems are visually musical and the rich vein of her native language, Portuguese, is beautifully captured in Alexis Levitin’s translation.

Two Blue Nib Reviewers, Lynda Scott Araya and Daniel Ajayi, consider Natalie Scott's 'Rare Birds Voices from Holloway Prison’

'Had I not offered the Frisbee man my stare, the brief but unsettling vision of his feather-topped head in my fridge, then he probably wouldn’t have veered off course and found the Frisbee, and the perfect woman'

These two compositions by Australian poet Anne M Carson are as sensual and precisely structured as the music that inspired them!

Alexis Levitin shares his view on being a translator in these cruel times: 'to show that we are all human, for better and for worse, and that language can uplift us, even if it cannot save us.'

Bruce Meyer, First Poet Laureate of Barrie, Ontario, CBC broadcaster, and prolific writer.

Emma Lee reviews Susan Castillo Street's 'Cloak'

There’s a sharp-eye and lexical fluency in the work of Alex Josephy. Italian appellations and clever depictions of larger than life plants, create imaginary worlds evocative of Alice.

Get lost in this strange but compelling story from author Lloyd Rees.

Emma Lee reviews Oz Hardwick's 'Wolf Planet'.

Or did the photographer just use the slant angle on a whim, without giving much thought to its emotional effect?

I’ve lost the feistiness and determination I exhibited upon capture, screaming for my right to a phone call and demanding the prison phone number so family in Kiev could call back.

Emma Lee reviews ‘Hinge’ by Alycia Pirmohamed

Thought provoking as a weeklong convention on the history of the brown paper bag in a city without cocktails, massage parlours, or even as much as a cup of tea.

Ahead of appearing in issue 44 of The Blue Nib, Helen Mort speaks to Abhaile editor, Tracy Gaughan about unsung heroes, where poems come from and the places that shape her imagination.

‘The Wild Laughter’ Caoilinn Hughes One World Publications ISBN 9781786077806, £14.99 hardback Towards the end of ‘The Crying of Lot 49’ (1965), Thomas Pynchon defines a visionary...

Don't miss our interview with Vivian Fiorentino, one of the poets included in Issue 43 of The Blue Nib: 'Writing is a form of awakening but also a way to turn violence, rage, despair into transformation. Into hope.'

History and a lingering sense of grief come together in this haunting work by Australian poet John Bartlett which delves into the enduring legacy of Mary, Queen of Scots.

On cue I would appear on my trapeze high above the ice and spin about the bar as fast as I could go. Like a whirligig, or a blowfly in a cobweb, the rhinestones on my leotard flashing.

Carolyn L. Tipton, Berkley poet, professor, and award-winning translator brings autumn alive with these short vivid poems.

Kimberly K Williams knows just how to hold up a mirror to the precise nature of her wonderment at nature, and we find ourselves immersed in her delicate reflections.

We’re connected to thousands of years of poetic tradition with Kirk’s fidelity to form. The melodic movement of his visual verse takes us from turbulent sestina to the resting place of Noah’s Ark.

‘He was Adam, separate, oak and beech and hazel trees crowded him, squeezed him, they were pigs buckling and squirming and their flesh heaved against him, sizzled and withered to a crinkled brown mass of labyrinths that formed and melted, formed and melted, and the air was full of screams. His own.’

John Casquarelli’s poems exult in vividness and engage the body of the reader in unexpected ways.

Dave Kavanagh reviews ‘The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree’ by Shokoofeh Azar, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, 2020.

Charlie Gracie weaves a wonderful tale of a bothy and a border post.

Dave Kavanagh reviews ‘The Adventures of China Iron’ by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, 2020.

John Hicks fills his poetry with vibrant colour and sound, in response to the world around him

Dave Kavanagh reviews 'Tyll' by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, 2020.

Let yourself be carried along by the lyricism and tightly packed melancholy of this villanelle by Irish-Australian poet, John Robert Grogan!

The Loss of Yellowhammers’ by John D. Kelly Published by Summer Palace Press, Donegal ISBN: 978-0-9954529-4-7 There is a pleasure to be occasioned in the poetry of...

Kelly is a poet of depth and flexibility who interrogates his surroundings, drawing intertextually on a variety of cultural references.

Youth meets age in Frances Guerin's engaging short story exploring the pain of loss.