NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
Outlaw
Bryn Fortey
212 Caerleon Road
Newport
NP19 7GQ
UK
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This page last updated: 14th December 2007. 		Outlaw #11

This issue of OUTLAW is the poetic equivalent of jazz. There's a real sense of syncopation, of playing with words to enjoy their sound, not to mention a fair amount of surrealism. Jesse Freeman is a poet, represented with a number of poems here, who captures this feeling of jazz very well, take this from ROOK BLUE:

	down new orleans day peters
	out
	double bass pizzicato nubile right hand hits strings
you just feel as though you're in the jazz club! As you do in Bryn Fortey's LISTENING TO STAN KEATON ON CD:
	Discord
	with style and panache

	Disharmony 
	with surrealist intent
which possibly describes some of the poems in this publication. This style of writing, as with jazz, can perhaps be an aquired taste. Many of these poems are not straightforward and may require work! However the poems here that play with language do so successfully and to great effect, avoiding the trap of cleverness over substance. Also, unlike many poets who play with language, the poets in this issue of OUTLAW aren't afraid to address issues. Daf Downes' IN EXCELSIS is a beautiful poem about Ecstacy use:
	our kinetic epiphanies summon a furry wave
	which bears me up over chemicals, crowds and 
	dirt, to a haze of abstraction where
	the words you say leave vapour trails,
	and no-one can tell the time. 

					...But

	slowly we are floating downwards,
	spiteful daylight has caught us unawares.
There are a number of political poems in this issue. I found that many of these were too overtly political to work poetically. I find that politics presented as thoughtful, lyrical poetry works better than a straightforward rant disguised as a poem. Khalid Khan's TIME BOMB is the most successful political poem here:
	Instrumental music		composed by pigeons
	relayed by BBC		entertained Seventh Fleet
	upon a time-bomb,		across the high seas,
while Phil Knight's THE NEW ZODIAC works by being very entertaining in its matching of political figures to the signs of the zodiac.

There are many excellent poems here and I will just mention two others. Janine Pommy Vega's WHOLE:

	the flood of sun, the colour yellow 
	bells in the backyard
and Bryn Fortey's WHEN THE M.I.Q PLAYED DJANGO
	ghost tree
	bone tree
			slice bark

			funereal green
			seeps to
			forest floor.
From sunshine to melancholy, OUTLAW is packed full of excellent poetry.

reviewer: Juliet Wilson.