Shearsman ##77 & 78

The latest double issue of Shearsman is ##77-78.

Christopher Middleton provides a string of poems about birds

the barn owl on his beam,
kestrel swivelling on a shaft of air
...
the ways their plummage
fits the planes
or tunnels in the air,
...
lonesome the loon calls back birds of Ur,
birds of Babylon,
for brilliant breeds have perished probably.

Gregory O'Brien gives us a set of poems based on the Spanish exploration of Doubtful Sound, New Zealand in 1793.

Punta de Espinosa

Together we played the wind-tossed
waters of Wet Jacket Arm.

Carrie Etter takes us along McLean County Highway 39

tar shrugs goes to dirt
gravel's slow crunch over
winter with no hill for
frost to the horizon

Astrid van Baalen writes of The saddest tree at Kew

There are words that twist the finger raw
like only once, and yet again once more.

Janice Fixter has been to Staffa

There's a wooden boat lurching against the storm tide
and for the first time violins are stringing out Hebridean notes

inside a stranger's head.

I know the feeling, ever since August 1984, just the name brings the music into my head and the cry of "green tarpaulins" but that's another story.

Also impressive in this issue, of which I've mentioned but a fraction, are George Messo's translations of Birhan Keskin.

Shearsman
58 Velwell Road
Exeter
EX4 4LD
UK
ISSN 0260-8049
£8.50 [$13.50]
Subscriptions: 2 dble-issues £12 [Europe £14; RoW £15]
cheques [sterling only] payable to "Shearsman Books"

visit the website of Shearsman Books

Read an account of Issue ##75-76.

Read reviews of earlier issues on NHI Review.