REVIEW: COLIN BANCROFT’S ‘KNIFE EDGE’

REVIEW: COLIN BANCROFT’S ‘KNIFE EDGE’

REVIEW: COLIN BANCROFT’S ‘KNIFE EDGE’     By Stella Backhouse   If the title of Colin Bancroft’s 2022 pamphlet Knife Edge brings to mind a straight line and nothing else, then you’re getting only half the picture. In fact, Knife Edge is already a clever play on...
REVIEW: HOLLY MAGILL’S ‘20’

REVIEW: HOLLY MAGILL’S ‘20’

REVIEW: HOLLY MAGILL’S ‘20’     By Stella Backhouse   20 is quite possibly the shortest title of any collection I’ve reviewed. But even though it consists of just two little characters, the most important part of it is arguably neither of them: it’s the space in...
REVIEW: PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA’S ‘FEED THE BEAST’

REVIEW: PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA’S ‘FEED THE BEAST’

REVIEW: PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA’S ‘FEED THE BEAST’     By Stella Backhouse   In a 2020 interview for Belfast-based film-making charity esc films, Irish Poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama spoke about the experience of being a gay man in the Catholic church: “I...
REVIEW: DEAN BROWNE’S ‘KITCHENS AT NIGHT’

REVIEW: DEAN BROWNE’S ‘KITCHENS AT NIGHT’

REVIEW: DEAN BROWNE’S ‘KITCHENS AT NIGHT’     By Stella Backhouse What does the unconscious feel like? Notice, I’m not asking what it looks like. That’s not because we know what it looks like – probably it doesn’t ‘look like’ anything in the conventional...
REVIEW: DAVID MORLEY’S ‘FURY’

REVIEW: DAVID MORLEY’S ‘FURY’

REVIEW: DAVID MORLEY’S ‘FURY’     By Stella Backhouse   Fury, David Morley’s 2020 collection, is a place where language is put to the test – specifically, the test of how important to the achievement of meaning is precise understanding. One way Morley explores this is...