NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
CARDINAL COX: TIR NA NOGHAM
Atlantean Publishing
38 Pierrot Steps
71 Kursaal Way
Southend on Sea
Essex
SS1 2UY
UK
10p

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CARDINAL COX: TIR NA NOGHAM

Latest instalment of Atlantean's excellent series of single-poet mini-collections in which a single sheet of A4 is folded in three to make a mini-booklet. Here I must declare an interest as my own OVERDRAWN AT THE MEMORY BANK was #14 in the series.

Ogham was the ancient Irish runic alphabet, Tir-Nan-Og the Celtic Land of the Young, a place beyond space and time — which is just right for the man who is the poet-in-residence at The Broadway Cemetery, Peterborough!

Cardinal Cox is well-known in genre poetry circles, and this collection is a welcome addition for aficionados of his work. THE PIPES OF PAN sums up a lot of it:

	Strange sounds welcome stars
	Eyes alive inside every shadow
There's a whole clutch of horror films encapsulated in the three lines of NO RELIABLE INFORMATION AT PRESENT and a cosmic breadth hinted at in LOST PAST/FORGOTTEN FUTURE:
	radio-telescope whispers
	tree fallen — empty wood
In the dark fantasy and gothic poems of this collection he comes over as a 21st century Walter de la Mare, as in NOT HAUNTED:
	There's a shadow on the curtain
	Where no tree casts its shape
	There's a creaking in the passage
	Where no foot drops its weight
If you've not discovered The Bards series up to now, you're missing a real treat, and at such a bargain price, they're within everybody's reach.

reviewer: John Francis Haines.