This Sunday, 25th April at 6.45 pm. ‘Between the Ears’. Follow this link to John Foggin’s excellent appraisal of Alison’s epic account of her serious injury and slow recovery – https://johnfogginpoetry.com/2021/04/19/catching-up-alison-locks-lure/

Jo Haslam is reading her prizewinning poem, and others, as part of the Teignmouth Poetry Festival. Late notice, I know, but it’s this evening at 7.30 pm.

Details are:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5608589872?pwd=bFRxYndLMThQRkU5Q0pHUjdvQ3o2Zz09

Meeting ID: 560 858 9872
Passcode: 4K8hWk

https://www.sphinxreview.co.uk/index.php/1066-alison-lock-lure?fbclid=IwAR2i4RwGgzQptIgCOYFH_LPKaGI-QtLK0E0hOKRknPMdRS1a1SAN6Xt4fH4

From Caroline Gill’s poetry blog:

Lure, published by Calder Valley Poetry, is described by Cathy Galvin on the back as Alison Lock‘s ‘liminal journey’ in and through a landscape of mud, rock and water. Alison wrote the poems during a spell of recovery from a very serious accident that occurred in this beautiful but bleak setting of hills and watercourses. The narrative may be dark in places, and while the poet’s approach reveals the tenacity of the human spirit, her language sparkles with the lustre of a Yorkshire river on a crisp and chilly morning.   

Wednesday, 7 October at 7.30 pm.

Filled with unforgettable lines, a wry humour and keen and exact observations, these poems range far and wide in their explorations of female desire and sexuality.  In her examination of an unusual childhood, Rees refuses to look away from the difficult truth of how darkness and love can coexist.
                                                                                                                  Kim Moore

In this impressive debut, startling images and dream-like narratives drift across the page, never quite settling. Natalie Rees has an original voice and an unflinching gaze. Themes embracing relationships, childhood trauma, and recovery are navigated with skill, elegance, and wit. There’s potency in what’s left unsaid, in the hesitancy of a line-break, the held breath of white space.

Ian Humphreys

The poems in Low Tide pick their way through a minefield of ideals and ideas about the body, gender, family and faith; addressing themselves to lovers, a husband, preachers, the language of the Bible, the German language of a mother, the dead, the emergency services and, in one of its most brilliant poems, Laura Ingalls.  Low Tide faces up to the world. It is powerful work, a poetry of becoming.
                                                                                                                John McAuliffe

Review by Denise Bundred:
https://www.sphinxreview.co.uk/index.php/1051-carole-bromley-sodium-136

To buy a copy for £8.70, inc. p&p, go to http://www.caldervalleypoetry.com and click on ‘Bookshop’.

https://www.jonathanpurkis.co.uk/our-bodies-grieving-with-nature

Greg’s review begins, ‘This collection of poems has been salvaged from the depths of a dramatic, near-fatal accident suffered by the poet Alison Lock three years ago, when she almost drowned and broke her back in seven places after falling into a millpond.’

Read the complete review here –
https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=105299

Follow this link to Julie Mellor’s poetry blog for her thoughts on the When All This Is Over anthology – https://juliemellorpoetsite.wordpress.com

Jack Faricy’s debut collection, Traces, now available from Calder Valley Poetry.

In his first collection, Traces, Jack Faricy gives us a wonderfully diverse set of poems, united by a keen eye for unexpected detail and technical skill. He is particularly good at the short, tightly-packed poem where every word and line-break is made to count.

Traces is a collection that satisfies on many levels – the language, the ideas, the use of form, the emotional tone.
                                                                                                                                                         Nigel King

I think this is an outstanding collection: dispassionate and clear-eyed observation, presented in a variety of well-mastered verse forms … a gift for long complex sentences which turn out to be perfectly understandable and nicely balanced … admirable assurance.
                                                                                                                                                          John Duffy

To order, follow the link – https://caldervalleypoetry.com/book-shop/. If this doesn’t work, go in to http://www.caldervalleypoetry.com and click on ‘Bookshop’. Scroll down until you reach ‘Traces’.