NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
Default
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Cork
Ireland
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Latest issue appears to be #3.
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This page last updated: 14th December 2007. 		Default #1

Fourteen A4 sheets (with a simple cover and minimal binding) present three poets, Colin Aherne, Eoin Ryan and James Cummins, the last of whom is the editor. The pieces by Eoin Ryan are very short, mostly two, three or four lines, each given one whole A4 page, which is a bit silly. Here is his poem, HANGOVER:

       I feel like shit
       And the flies,
       Like vultures,
       Are circling.
Here is a sample piece, CERTAINLY YOU'VE CHANGED, from James Cummins:
       Is truth too
       Happiness the
       Blind (taking road)
       Sea. Bushel
       Face. Bushel
       Blind. Bushel
       Varying
       The trouble.
       Spare
       Golden Health?
Just to be fair to all of them, here are a few lines from SPEED PACK by Colin Aherne, who is the slightly most accessible and traditional of the three:
       These are long hot days, dusty blasted deserts
       All surround high houses that sit so empty
       Save for carpet, curtains and fitted kitchens
       And the gardens green outside with flowers
       Well illustrate mans mockery of nature & her majesty.

reviewer: Alan Hardy.
Default #2

Unusually a magazine that assumes readers will make the effort to visit the website where, presumably, price and submission details are kept. Let that be a warning: DEFAULT assumes readers will make an effort (not necessarily a bad thing) and aims for a concern with words, observation, language and the gaps between. Anamaria Crowe Serrano's NOISE:

	Noise changes the meaning
	of everything a laurel leaf
	against a sound drop of busy
	street is not a laurel leaf
	but something closer to
	an engine the temporary hooting
	of a shade of green.

	Omit the revving and the drone
	and its veins become
	essential odorous
	a lingering moment
	in the day.
	Honking turns leaves
	into tone deaf tunes.
might have benefited from more punctuation and I'm not sure what "odorous" is doing in a poem about noise except filling out a line to even out both stanzas. The application of "tone deaf" (Oxford definition: 'unable to perceive differences in musical pitch') to a tune is mis-placed or perhaps, being tone deaf, I'm being too literal. Andrew Slattery's SQUID INK relies on sound:
	Squert staine rubbah mollusky
	inc sak blac squeec skquilch

	Fishamen lien squeen frillen
	spraye sucky schwarzen blotch.

	Dye oooze spitte slimest tubillar
	sheethe tentercalls, bitte goswim slinked...
and knows when to stop. DEFAULT is reader friendly in that it uses A4 sheets, a bold font and spaces no more than one poem per page, but doesn't appear to want to sell itself so risks becoming a clique.

reviewer: Emma Lee.