NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

This is a 28-page stapled, A5 booklet, containing poems along with some artwork. My first impression was that it is a bit of a hodgepodge, probably due to my irritation at the publication and editorial detail being given on page 25. However, this is a well-put-together publication. It is friendly and sociable with some rather peculiar pieces — and this is what makes it of interest. It is reasonably priced and provides a pleasant coffee-time read for subscribers. The piece called UNSPOKEN by Juliet Wilson tackles a communication problem:

	Once every six months he phones,
	puts the receiver down
	as soon as she answers.
	He just wants to know she's still there
	reckons that once every six months
	a silent call won't freak her
	has no idea how much
	she wants it to be him
	wants him to speak
	say something, anything,
	and that once every six months
	is just enough to break
	her heart.

Curlew #52 is like a long letter from a beloved but somewhat chaotic aunt.

The editor Jocelynne Precious apologises upfront but one can sense the panic at the failure of the electric kettle and the microwave. Perhaps some dandelion wine fermenting in the cellar at Hare Cottage near Harrogate in Yorkshire has gone off or the corks have popped — who knows? The upshot is that the homely 28-page magazine is full of little handwritten notes of varying importance — rather like my old aunt's shopping lists. It's all a charming disorderliness, a kind of kitchen sink drama complete with conspiracy theories about this and that. It has a friendly busy bee feel to it.

It's worth highlighting the note concerning the poetic content of Curlew #52 since it does point up one of the main problems of running a small poetic enterprise —

I apologize for there being few poets and so much 'me' in this issue. I seem to have returned a lot of work recently. I am either getting too fussy or am not getting good work in. Some is being carried over for the winter issue, including fiction. — JP.

	Through a break in the trees
	watching her pass;

	a thin girl in slight rain.

	There is mobility to speech
	fully engaged

	tho can't hear a word
	simply watch

	the long looping
	fragrant sentences

	grow short
	but how bright the pause is.

Curlew #52 contains several bold line drawings from Bill West, an essay about the demise of iron railings in England from Jocelynne Precious herself, a few reviews under the heading HOW NOT TO WRITE REVIEWS and a lengthy article on impressionist painting.

There are apparently some opportunities for new voices at Curlew, now in its 21st year, providing the quality is there. The editor evidently has a sense of humour and therefore something apt and amusing may have a chance at the scissors and kitchen table.

Potential contributors should in fairness to the editor ensure they use a clean typewriter; problems experienced reading Steve Sneyd's SO VIVID IT MUST BE TRUE which was regrettably so blurred and blotched that it wasn't.

Acceptable payment for Curlew is given as English Sterling, the current Yorkshire currency, although one suspects that a Scottish fiver or two might feel equally at home in the shoestring poetry coffer at Hare Cottage. As MP John Prescott says in one of the editor's ubiquitous handwritten notes —

us northern lads must stick together

You could describe this magazine as a quite interesting hotch-potch — a description engendered by the variety of fonts within its covers (submissions are scanned and then printed in an author's original type-face). It is a pity that the poetry has, in the main, less variety than the print that presents it. The poems are often abstruse (deliberately so — or so it seems). Those whose meaning is clear are what I would call list poems; poems that have little discernible thrust or pace. Having said that, some of the lists are fun or sharp, or both.

CURLEW has the feel of a grammar school fifth form mag of three decades ago — sparky, politically aware but lacking in depth. I would imagine a contemporary fifth form would make a better job of presentation if not content. It is essentially a local effort and at £1.50 in no way a rip-off.

Gerald England's haiku/senryu are refreshing in their immediacy, as is his MIDNIGHT A CAT HOWLS — a senryu-like mini narrative.

I did like the fact-based story BLAIRHILL ST. ANDREWS by David McVey, describing the forced and unnecessary demise of an old building — amusing, charming and, ultimately, sad.

Issues of Curlew are one or two a year. It may be useful literature for those who like the surprise or satisfaction of delving within the pages of a rather undisciplined journal and finding the odd item they like, be it within a lengthy editorial or among the poetry. The more meticulous will be put off by general asides in the prose and xeroxed after-print and after-thought corrections in handwriting.

One can identify about 25 poems and some black and white artwork, the former by Simon Robson, Jocelyn Precious (editor), Anthony Coleman, Geoff Stevens, Austin McCarron, Alan Hardy, Gerald England, T.J.Matthews, John Younger, Gordon Scapens, Daniel Healy, J.P.V.Stewart. Bill West, Stephen Warvillow, Hayley Murphy, Rodney Noon and Tim Linton. The latter, artwork is shared between Bill West and Gerald England. I am not a connoisseur of amateur artwork but the bird silhouette by England and the Morocco fountain by West well catch the eye.

RETURN OF THE CANBERRA by Precious was a worthy subject for a poem, referring to the S.S.Canberra, a very old electrical driven liner used to ferry troops in the Falklands war:

	scene fit
	for some 19th century
	primitive

	attended by bobbing boats
	tipped precariously
	in the deep

	I will breakfast
	On last night's hopes,
	Licked to perspective,
	And ignore the newspaper 
	Holding the sound
	Of the world's sneers.

	I shall wear my clothes
	like old friends returning
	for a reunion party,
	hold my loved ones
	without a single word
	being necessary.