In these days when surrealism has become a staple of breakfast cereal adverts, it’s hard imagining the original impact of, say, Paul Éluard’s ‘la terre est bleue comme une orange’ (the earth is blue like an orange), or Robert Desnos’ ‘je suis le bûcheron de la forêt d’acier’ (I am the woodcutter in the steel forest). Vicente Huidobro never signed up officially to the programme, a mishap that’s led to his absence from most surrealist anthologies then and now, but this bilingual volume brings together two small collections from the mid-twenties, the period when he was most influenced by them. 

Reading this kind of work from a century’s distance takes some getting used to. The stuff about capital-W Woman can feel embarrassingly archaic, and the love-poems evince a paramour too scatterbrained to generate any intensity, let alone be reciprocated. Those about the seasons, the sky and nature manage better…

I would

tear through

bureaucracy

like a wolf.

For credentials

I have no respect.

I’d send paperwork

straight to hell,

along with

the horse it rode in on.

But this document…

The polite functionary

moves

along the frontier

of cabins

and compartments.

People

proffer

passports

and I give

my little purple booklet.

Some passports

make him

show his teeth.

Others

he almost disdains.

And with respect he takes e.g.

the double-dormant

English lions.

With his eyes

he eats

the good ol’ boy up,

and bends

in a ceaseless obeisance,

and takes,

as though

accepting a tip,

a passport that’s an American’s.

Looks at a Polish pass

like a goat at an advert.

His eyes

bulge

as he looks at the Pole’s passport,

in dull

elephantine

police-ishness,

where’s this guy from,

and what

are these geographical fantasies?

Without turning

his cabbage-like bonce,

showing

no feelings

in any way,

he unblinkingly takes

Well, I started the year well enough on the blog, I guess. But there was a long period, about six months (if I’m being generous to myself) when my idea of keeping the rhythm going here and posting something every couple of weeks didn’t really work out. But better in 2020! Onwards and upwards! Less meat, more water!

I read 216 books in 2019. This is a slightly skewed number, because I had the great good fortune to be awarded the opportunity to go and write for almost a month at Hawthornden Castle in Midlothian, between mid-March and mid-April. My (then) new job was extremely flexible, and let me take the time off, and I spent a wonderful month doing nothing apart from eating and writing and reading. I discovered lots of people I didn’t know about, such as the great American poet Sandra Alcosser, and reread lots of people…

When I read ‘Morning Song’ by Sylvia Plath, I thought I would never again read a poem that so vividly and movingly captures motherhood. That was until I read Zoë Siobhan Howarth-Lowe’s second pamphlet, ‘I Have Grown Two Hearts’ from Hedgehog Poetry Press. There are so many poems here to match Plath’s classic.

In her collection Howarth-Lowe reflects upon her experiences of motherhood and parenting. She explores both the joys and the difficulties. In ‘Ultrasound’ we share with her the sense of wonder at new life: in ‘Hearing the Unheard’ and ‘Guilt and Longing’ the irresistibility of the maternal instinct; and in ‘Going Back’ and the title poem, ‘I have Grown Two Hearts’, the fulfilment of parenting. Readers will be struck by the honesty of Howarth’s writing: whilst she captures these positives, she also deals with the daily challenges: such as…