NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Subtitled Poems by ten members of the The Poetry School Manchester and bearing the date 2005/6, this selection, as with others I might have seen of a similar nature, is remarkably light on solid information. Giving only an e-mail address and lacking any explanation as to how and why it came about, or any details of the poets included, it is presented very much in a take-it-or-leave-it manner.

The general standard is high, though so is the proportion of sestinas (four) — a fiendishly difficult form that hardly appears outside of a poetry workshop. That said, one of them, SESTINA AGAINST INSOMNIA, in free verse by Stephen Payne, is one of the best poems in the booklet:

	And through that long night
	he searched for new magic
	to conjure the silky scarf of sleep

	Didn't you wonder, cupping your hands
	under the whispering stars
	how many boxes you could fit
	into the biggest one of all?