NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Edrington takes no prisoners. Everything here is raw reality, written in technicolour. Often the language is shocking, sensual and serious. I don't give full marks to much work I review, but there again, Edrington's work is seriously good. Of the 35 poems, I marked 18 as five star — if, however, you are easily offended or of a nervous disposition, you'd best stop reading now.

The rest of you are in for a master class in writing poetry for the 21st century. SHEDDING SKIN gives a feel. It's about a hooker dreaming of getting out of the business:

	sucking on a .357 chunk of steel
	like a pacifier...
	she's not a fucking object
	and smart enough to know it,

	The heat hung in the air
	like sheets of cellophane

	a rookie cop puked
	into a shit-clogged toilet
	& called for an ambulance...

	...momma lay overdosed
	with a welfare check
	coursing pure Afghani
	horse through her caved
	hypodermic veins

	But today,
	the poets place is in the margins
	of the society page.
	Not centre stage.
	We reserve that for petty scandals.
	We want to know
	which rockstar is fucking
	which moviestar,
	how to lose 30 lbs in 30 seconds

Honed silk smooth with absolutely no wasted material, everything is so skillfully written that these poems read themselves. Minimal punctuation, enjambment working overtime and metre is perfection. Sensational throughout, so all you need do is concentrate on the gritty word pictures. Taken from the third stanza of MELISSA SOMETIMES, this is one of many such pictures, vividly told in four short lines:

	like an albino's dry leper skin,
	as my syringe slowly soaks
	up the final split tear
	of a pawned diamond ring

Best of the bunch for me is MACHO MANHOOD BULLSHIT which tells of wife-beating, homophobic men riding round in Chevy 4x4 truck extensions of their penis. I've had way too much of this cowardly abuse in my own life, so when they slide up to the curb and threaten this clearly hetero guy, Edrington's street wise take on putting them down reads:

	...threaten to call the cops
	when I flick out a nine-inch Italian stiletto
	and promise to cut off their balls