NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Inside these 42 pages (panoramic oblong) are basically two concrete poems by Gael Turnbull; poetry by Scott Watson (editor) Ken Sutton and Noel King; some English versions of Japanese poetry by Scott Watson; and prose by Scott Watson. The last item is 26pp, occupying over half the issue.

The general impression is badly balanced content, but this must be weighed against the liberation of expression which is virtually free to obtain and items must be considered individually in this case.

Gael must now be an old stager but as a literary bongocero his biconcentric WHEREVER seems well fitted for bongo imagery.

Ken Sutton's

	when I'm a flag
	I can fly
	but not far

	we are separated from
	everything we desire
	by the thickness of a thought

Of Scott Watson's shorties (16 poems), many fell flat for me, without bite, but the 11th re-echoes some of his prose in feeling a presence in nature which no amount of man-made conurbation can supply. One might say that mankind's environmental energy is self-defeating:

	went down
	an asphalt street
	to a park of
	dirt and gravel
	where were
	rusted swings
	broken bottles
	paper pieces where
	the curb's
	concrete I sat on
	was crumbling
	where a few trees
	were, with sun,
	with wind, some-
	one

	rape blossom filling a field is,
	to me, god.
	a magnolia divinity me under
	a tree its flowering white.
  
	here, in mugworts' domain, young and growing thick,
	mugworts is the voice almighty
	or all of a sudden it's creeping wood sorrel
	I'm a follower of.
 
	peach blossom deity,
	Manchurian strawberry flowering —
	all that comes quietly to fullness
	I am one of the faithful.

Lastly are Scott's prose pieces which are biographically slanted — A TEA BOWL OF TEACHING concerns teaching English in Japan and is the major piece. Long drawn out and rambling, it is nevertheless a first-hand account within which various philosophical or practical comments can be absorbed with benefit. It would be interesting to have a parallel article from a typical Japanese student about Western teachers to offset any one-sided comment. Perhaps it would throw light on the manifold difficulties which surface on Scott's agenda, trying humanisation within a rather rigid system. While Scott gets somewhat emotional and bolshy in his descriptions, it is evident that very little seems to work for him. There appears to be a built-in temperament, family or politically conditioned and the mechanism, added to the language problem, produces defeatism for the teacher. Some better contact seems to be made when the teacher enters into Japanese chit-chat.

But the difficulties of free cultural thought versus almost the rules of thought and behaviour can be appreciated, recognizing that one can go overboard in the hedonism, capitalist-encouraged sex events, and popular culture of the West. Something in between perhaps. Not those thoughts with reverence for a tea jar because it bears 76 coats of lacquer and not those producing the free-wheeling oddities in Tate Modern.

A curious little publication from Japan containing a long prose piece from Scott Watson and poetry from 7 writers, including again Scott Watson. There are also 6 black & white art works by Ed Baker, which I have to admit I found peculiar rather than anything else.

The prose piece is a 14 page essay on BEING AMERICAN. It includes a lot of important food for thought on American identity — both in national and individual terms. The piece is very personal and autobiographical, but also provokes thought on a range of issues from junk food to shopping malls, personal security to environmental destruction. Ideal material for starting a discussion!

The poetry is mostly minimalist, which I find appealing. Joseph Massey's 8 POEMS include this beautiful mini-haiku:

	Sparrow's song
	tangled in
	church bells

			suck 
	the nectar of a
	flower waiting for snowmen.

There is a lot of variety in this small publication, though something of an over-reliance on one writer.

This is a very unusual paperback production and its exact aims and provenance are difficult to ascertain. In appearance it is slightly smaller than an A4 pad turned sideways; it is bound in mint-green card, and bears only its title and issue number in black type on the front. Inside there is the notice that

BOTL is a non-profit, no-grant, totally funds-lacking, money-pit publication.

The contents are about equally divided between sparse free verse poems and slight, rapid pen sketches — some scarcely more sophisticated than doodles. Most, but not all, of these have some sort of kinship with the adjacent poems. Here are three short samples taken from among these:

	only
	Subject

		seeing
		noh
		Object

	Stone Girl

	naked

		each breath heaving Prayer is her breast full-milk giving

	Silk breeze Summer dress wrapping around Stone Girl neatly.

So, whatever else BONGOS OF THE LORD may purport to be, it is certainly a unique piece of work — possibly attractive to an audience of insiders, or those who seek to be initiated in what appear to be its secret rites of communication.