Saboteur Awards 2023
In the world of independent creatives, the Saboteur Awards are a rare opportunity to celebrate the people and communities that bigger literary prizes are likely to overlook. This is HCE’s reminder for you to go vote, and also that we/projects we’re involved in are eligible to be voted for in FOUR categories…
REVIEW: KATRINA DYBZYNSKA’S ‘SECRETS OF THE DICTATOR’S WIFE’
By Stella Backhouse | I don’t know how much Katrina Dybzynska’s self-described ‘nomadic’ lifestyle has seeped into the contents of her Aryamati Prize-winning pamphlet Secrets of the Dictator’s Wife, but this is shape-shifting poetry that intrigues by its unspecific-ness. You sense that it could be placed over an array of different situations and still preserve congruence with […]
Gods and Monsters: The Vampire
By Eve Volungeviciute | Sink your teeth into this article exploring vampiric lore and tropes worldwide! Everything from ancient origins to medieval methods of breaking the curse, all the way up to the recent fictional representations of Anne Rice, ‘Buffy’ and (unavoidably) ‘Twilight’…
REVIEW: KEVIN REID’S ‘SUITCASE’
By Stella Backhouse | “During lockdown, I experienced homesickness for the first time in years. Don’t get me wrong: I was at home – what is now my home – the whole time. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the town where I grew up. The yearning to walk along certain streets became almost physical; the worry that I would never again […]”
REVIEW: CASEY BAILEY’S ‘PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH’
By Stella Backhouse | In his 2021 collection Please Do Not Touch, Casey Bailey explores how it feels for a Briton of Afro-Caribbean heritage to be present in some of the most ostentatious legacies of Britain’s slaving and colonial past. […]
REVIEW: OLGA DERMOTT-BOND’S ‘A SKY FULL OF STRANGE SPECIMENS’
By Stella Backhouse | Insecurity laps the poetry of Olga Dermott-Bond’s 2021 pamphlet A Sky Full of Strange Specimens. I use the word ‘lap’ advisedly: this is a collection where water and disaster haunt each other across the pages. […]
REVIEW: HARRY GALLAGHER’S ‘THERE IS AN ENGLAND’
By Stella Backhouse | Publishing a collection that argues ‘leave’ was the wrong decision could look like a spectacular act of self-sabotage. In fact, Gallagher’s new collection, ‘there is an england’, squares this circle by presenting Brexit as an unwitting act of class betrayal. […]
INTERVIEW: FIRE&DUST MEETS MARTIN HAYES
Martin Hayes is the author of seven collections of poetry and has been employed in the London same-day courier industry for over 30 years. His poetry consistently reflects on workplace issues and culture. In December 2022, he was the guest headliner at our Fire & Dust spoken word night. HCE caught up with Martin after the event, to ask a few questions…
Press Release: Coventry Welcomes Dresden Poet
As part of the newly launched Coventry-Dresden Writers Exchange, a poet and artist will be visiting Cov from overseas in April 2023. But who is it…?
REVIEW: CATHI RAE’S ‘YOUR CLEANER HATES YOU’
By Stella Backhouse | “Your Cleaner Hates You is eclectic in range, with poems covering subjects as diverse as ageing and retrospection, family history, the writing process and the valued companionship of dogs and horses. Notably strong on list poetry, if a single idea could be said to unite it, I think it would be the idea of […]”