A Journal of Enlightened Panic, Alan Baker, Shoestring Press, 2020, ISBN: 978-1-912524-56-3, £6.00

light light light; 21 Poems, Charlie Ulyatt, Essence Press, 2022, Price dependent on location

Wasp on the Prayer Flag, Maeve O’Sullivan, Alba Publishing, 2021, ISBN 9781912773398, £10/€12/$15

‘When a man goes out’, the opening poem in Alan Baker’s pamphlet, begins with an echo of the folk tradition, specifically the ballad known as ‘As I Roved Out’:

When a man goes out on a Sunday morning among May-month trees

(maple, sycamore, rowan, oak) and sees the tarmac paths,

the metal bench, the individual grass stalks and daises

and realises they’re the same ones he saw forty years ago

Baker’s quickly moves away from the folk tale of sex and deceit towards a journey through a closely observed world was the poem turns first to a meditation on the ecological impacts of our actions…