NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

I have really enjoyed reading The Journal #16. It is everything a literary journal should be. The reviews are interesting, the poetry is an eclectic mix of everything — in short, it is a good read. There are some familiar names, Bruce McRae, Simon Perchik, Idris Caffrey and Mandy Pannett just to name a few, but on the whole, it could be renamed The Journey as it leads you to explore any number of different poets and styles.

The Journal is a well-presented magazine. Thirty-six pages crammed with poetry, reviews and prose. One of the nicest things about this magazine is the ease with which it is read. Each page is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, holds the reader's interest, and allows plenty of white space. Even the randomly scattered notes from the editor, boxed off and in smaller print, don't disrupt or annoy the reader. In fact the editor doesn't even see the need to reel off pearls of wisdom in an editorial; one serious difference that this magazine possesses. A plain black and white A4 production, this is definitely for the serious poetry lover.

The veneer suits perfectly the poetry it contains. Each poem is as raw and straightforward as the magazine is plain. There is no artifice. There is passion, conviction and power. Take, for example, END-STAGE by James Turner:

	The problem's not death, it's being alive
	after
	the
	narrative's
	over.

Another poem that is interesting in its visual and aural impact is that of THE MEAT MEN by Mark Farrell:

	And how, they're staring at us now?
	their meat sizz-i-ling
	slow
	-i-
	ly:
	"Come down here," they spray and they say,
		"yeah.we want to
		MEAT
		you girls."
			? we giggle and jiggle and giggle until
		"No," says Lorna P.,
			"because we're mad cows
	and you're diseased.

Three poems by Andrew Grossman, DETAINEE #895263V, DETAINEE #393463C AND DETAINEE #193993S, simply have to be mentioned. Snapshots into the private minds of prisoners, my immediate thought was that of Guantanamo Bay as each poem is a descent into the private tortured madness of the detainee they depict.

The review section was refreshingly chatty and honest. No beating around the bush, hedging bets about insulting poets and publishers, the reviewers know their stuff and impart it on to the reader. I particularly enjoyed reading the reviews by Emma Lee, a straight-talking shooting-from-the-hip kind of reviewer whose concern and enthusiasm for her books showed through.

I enjoyed The Journal #16 as I have already stated. It is refreshingly plain and down to earth. If you can subscribe to it, do so. You won't be disappointed.

The Journal comprises forty pages of poetry and reviews in a large black and white stapled format. The print is easy to read and the paper of a good quality. The poetry it contains (and the books it reviews) seem to straddle the line between mainstream and the more avant garde, sometimes with very pleasing effects, other times slightly disastrously. The highlight for me was reading the two poems by Mark Goodwin, the first being an oddly disturbing poem called THE ENTITY OF MAN:

	The stairs are parts of people
	                        as the well

	thumbed man passes

	up through the stations of house.

	Each footprint 
	      of his is felt

	by some soul elsewhere.

	His ears have been
	dogged by a god's mis

	-handling him.

	he passes

	 through like a stool 
	from one part of the gut. 

	I miss you
	I miss YOU
	I miss yoU
	I Miss You
	I Miss yOu

The reviews are probably my favourite thing about The Journal. There are many, and they are all short and snappy. What is more, the books being reviewed are not your usual fare of big-name publications, or even miniscule unknowns, but some really interesting items; it feels as if each review held some kind of importance, and that the book(s) deserve to be reviewed.