NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

In his 2-page editorial John Waddington-Feather informs readers that he believes in Creationism and Evolution. The world was made in 6 days as outlined in Genesis but it was

Long in our conception of time

Quite another thing with God who lives outside our time dimension.

Works of art don't just happen. There's a process in the artist's, the poet's, or the composer's mind which brings forth the final product, from a bare canvas or a blank piece of paper or manuscript.

God's Holy Spirit who empowers us to create beauty in our painting, writing and music.

Pray and write in the Spirit at all times.

	Tall trees shade Bluebells
	a joy for the young to pick
	bouquet for parents

Philip Comfort's poem about HURRICANE KATRINA follows a tried and tested path with lines like:

	Unmothered brute beast bends nature
		bullies seas into heave, growl, ghoul
	not descriminating (sic) whose marrow it sucks —
	shores, homes, trees, and thinner structures, man —
	as it dumps heaps of water deeper than despair
	and there's no God or Noah near.
	...
	saints appear as living light unearthing cheer,
	beaming hope, absorbing pools of tears.

The small poem SALVATION from Vivienne Romilly-Weightman neatly describes the main strand of the editorial poetic philosophy. The key word this time being purity:

	Poetry is my salvation
	Poetry is my guiding star.
	No polluted words can mar,
	The purity of thought inspired.

	People are not the same anymore.
	They go casting about like a whore
	In search of some young blade to defile.
	...
	or a dime, they'll take off their clothes
	To taunt and tease those who try to live right.
	...
	Give the game up; and soon the whole town
	Is pouncing upon them to pluck out those eyes
	That once saw God but now despise

	Tha'rt sure to hev this reg'lar ups-an'-dahns,
	to fratch a bit an' sometimes shed a tear,
	but nah tha'rt wed tha'll hev to mak it up
	an' ho'd each other closer an' more dear.

This is a thirty six page booklet of prayers and poems by Christian contributors which displays all the expected symbolism of that faith and contains such diverse references as : god's tenderness, sickness and infirmity, nature and its bounty, art and beauty, global warming, the dead reassembling themselves at the second coming, rampant consumerism and walls as instruments of apartheid from China to the Middle East. The volume is interesting for its editorial which longs for a new golden age of poetry in which the charitable and selfless side of man is encompassed and the personal pronoun is omitted.

The poetry itself ranges from the amateurish — Anne Churchward's TO CHURCH WE GO:

	The Church bells of St Paul's were ringing
	Then soon the choir started singing
	There was a large congregation
	Even Peggy and her relation
 
	The vicar said, "will you all please kneel,
	while we pray to God, the sick to heal?"
	now Mr Jackson the first lesson did read 
	about the sowing of the seed.
 
	All the seed was scattered all around
	Some fell on good soil, some on stony ground.
	"Now we will all stand and sing hymn forty seven.
	"All the glory of God's wonderful Heaven.
 
	Next up to the pulpit the vicar did go
	To continue about the seeds in his sermon, you know.
	Now like the seed we all grow, some strong, some weak.
	But we are all in God’s eyes, in his eyes us doth keep.

	listen to its crackle as forest fires burn:
	listen to it repeated and repeat it a dozen times —
	how can you capture those meanings
	you can never pin down?
	So say the word, not any word, say the word peace —
	And listen to your name.

The quality of the poetry is debatable but the sentiment is honest.

THE POETRY CHURCH, as it's title suggests, is a magazine dedicated to devotional poetry. It is a stapled, A5 publication with a card cover and houses both poems and prayers with a strong Christian theme.

In his editorial, John Waddington-Feather speaks on the commercialisation of the Christmas period and suggests:

When we have bought all our gifts this Christmas, could we tot up the cost and then tithe a tenth of that cost to charity?

To the poetry: there are pieces by writers of all capabilities in this magazine. I'm afraid that for me, some of them are rather lacking in poetic skill. That being said, I think it is to be considered that this is a magazine in which Christians share their work and their theme is their faith. There is no lack of warmth and friendly feeling within the covers of this journal.

But, for every poem I didn't enjoy, there was one that I did. From David Grieve's, NOT JUST BLEAKNESS:

	Skeletal tree in barren garden,
	stripped and bare
	in December air
	bereft of sunshine's startling pardon

	Yet in each yearly deadly leisure
	life remains
	in unseen veins
	till earth releases buried treasure.

Without doubt, my favourite poem in this issue has to be John Waddington-Feather's verse in Yorkshire dialect, TUNNING T'CLOCKS BACK. The speaker of this poem is definitely less than happy at the insistence on playing around with the clocks; turning them forward and back. In the final stanza, he considers a way to sort out the clocks from which we would all benefit:

	Nah, if ther want to laike wi' time
	An mak thersens a neeam,
	Then tun all t'clocks back fifty year
	An' mak me young ageean!

Maybe not all of the poems are eloquent or skillfully executed but I think that, in the case of this magazine, the work has to be judged in its context as a place for those with similar faith to meet and share their love of their God — and that can't be a bad thing.

The Poetry Church is an enthusiastic small press magazine whose focus is the Christian faith. This A5, soft-cover, saddle-stitched booklet is forty pages long and includes poetry from varyingly proficient contributors. It has a few short prayers and an EDITORIAL at the front and lists similar books by this and other publishers at the back.

Published by Feather Books, its editor the Reverend John Waddington-Feather, uses the maxim

Pray and write in the Spirit at all times.

Some of the poems are written from the heart and may give some comfort to the writer but have little poetic merit and it would be easy when first dipping into this booklet to miss those poems that offer something of greater depth such as: LEAVING SALÒ by Pauline Kirk:

	He is reading the Daily Mail. 
	We are gently gliding
	towards mountain and forest,
	across a lake so intense
	a travel brochure could not lie,
	and the man opposite
	is reading the Daily Mail.

	I think of my recent dead
	mother, father, aunt, born
	too soon for packaged dreams,
	too low for grand tours.
	They would have traded 
	respectability to come here,
	and he

	is reading the Daily Mail.

And I also particularly appreciated the poem GOLGOTHA, HILL OF SKULLS by C. Sparkes. The title really makes your mouth move round the hard-edged consonants, and its very literal reference stands against the more subtle imagery within the stanzas. For those that might not know, the title is the biblical name for the place where Jesus was crucified.

The poem itself is well structured with a mix of poetic techniques. The poet's assured use of these techniques give easy rhythms and great imagery.

	It was, it's somehow
	propagated in the balancing
	of things, calculated
	on a bleeding hilltop,
	God's reckoning up with men,
	that after his rough sponging
	in the vinegar-red
	of the sour world's wine,
	the King of thorns
	should witness in its blackened skies

Overall the booklet offers a celebration of the Love of God and the thankfulness for the small aspects of life that brighten the day.