Praise and Poems

The pamphlet has ever been an effective form for polemic, and these are in many ways poem-polemics ‒ or, one might say, ‘poemics’. Here, the twin bugbears of ‘Brexit’ and Covid are confronted with defiance, wit and a linguistic energy that manages to almost figuratively extinguish them on the page. But these are also deeply humane poems, expressions of solidarity with colleagues and fellow travellers. The lockdown sequence is a tour-de-force capturing so much of the unreal atmosphere of that long spring pause during 2020, while the Black Lives Matter movement is empathically depicted. Importents is an important poetic statement on our nerve-gratingly eventful times.   Alan Morrison

‘Lockdown, Week Ten’ is hard-hitting, heartbreaking and painful, yet also an affirmation of people of colour, and a positive engagement in the discourses around racial injustice. Thank you, Naomi Foyle.   Catherine Okoronkwo

2020

Welcome to the year
of twin swans emerging
from two tunnels,
I say, full of sorrow,
having looked ahead
to far distant centuries,
and knowing no other date
will ever match such elegance.
In the floating mirror of 2020
we are all still visionaries.
Such a perfect number, I
almost wouldn’t mind
it on my grave.