Barbara Giles

I’m a speedy reader, a rapid degutter of poems, yet it took me days to read John Tranter’s Selected Poems. This poetry is so packed with meaning, with metaphor, so inventive, intelligent, and funny it’s impossible to hurry. It left me, though I’d read most of it before, wishing for a Complete Poems to fill the gaps. ... (read more)

In an increasingly secular age, The Lines of the Hand is an unusual book. Almost half of the poems it contains are direct communications with an evident and accessible God, while others are celebrations of Creation. ... (read more)

Anthologists face more than one dilemma of choice, beside that of personal preference. Is it better to show more of fewer poets, and give a true picture of their qualities and scope, to range widely across the landscape of the art, or reach a compromise between these methods? There are excellent anthologies in each genre. ... (read more)

The Most Beautiful World is somewhat of a conundrum at first look. I spent a long time trying to penetrate the surface of this latest book of poetry by Rodney Hall. I had just been reading his exciting, original, and well-sustained novel Just Relations, I guess I was looking for the same excitement here. It didn’t arrive on schedule. The book is made up of office ‘suites’ – which they are ... (read more)