NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
JOHN TANNER: PIECES
Cinnamon Press
Ty Meiron
Glan yr Afon
Tanygrisiau
Blaenau Ffestiniog
Gwynedd
LL41 3SU
UK
ISBN 0 9549433 8 4
£7.99

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JOHN TANNER: PIECES
PIECES is a well thought-out and presented book of poems. The opening sequence on childhood includes topics such as a trip to the seaside and the Korean War, with a variety of other topics in between. There follows a poem called JACK, which hinges on the social framework of the 'honest day's work' which ends this way:
	Pause.  Look up.
	Beyond the crab
	of the gantry crane,
	tall windows,
	cathedral windows,
	spattering us with soiled light.
John Tanner has a good sense of rhythm and the ability to leave some space for the reader. He also has a keen sense of humour. He bravely takes on some deep and sobering topics and handles them sensitively. John Tanner skims times and places and the detail hones you in. The love of language is apparent in this piece from PROMISED LAND:
	All night you were crossing
	the Great Plains:
	they lay down
	pale and fevered,
	dreamed themselves
	sucking at the moon.
John Tanner has much to offer and I expect to see more of his work.
reviewer: Doreen King.