NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Operational now for five years this large and ever expansive collection of poetry and criticism emanates from the University of Salzburg under the editorship of Wolfgang Görtschacher. David Miller, an eminent poet and member of PSR's editorial board, describes the magazine's policy as promoting

work that challenges tradition, but also work that does something new with traditional concerns, formal or otherwise ...

There are excellent reviews to be found here, particularly Anne Born writing about John Kinsella followed by a collection of his poems and an un-missable essay on INTENSIVISM. Mary Michaels' review of Frances Presley and Glyn Pursglove's review of two collections by Damian Smyth are scholarly offerings, and the review of two collections of prose poetry from David Miller, by Giles Goodland is both scholarly and enlightening, but it is Anne-marie Glasheen's introduction to WOMEN'S VOICES FROM FRANCOPHILE BELGIUM AND LUXEMBOURG and its introduction to the works of the eight poets whose work ends this large collection that is, for me, the most direct and honest piece of writing here.

In any large collection it is difficult to make selections. What has moved us? What has cut through the academic gloss to touch us?

Glen Cavaliero's opening of DULCE DOMUM:

	Sardinian woods are scruffy
	in October heat.
	A sharp tang of old goat
	mingling with woodsmoke

	A collapsed farmhouse chokes
	on squandered orchards
	in the trough below. Crickets on the hearth
	are not at home

	And the hell-mouth vomiting iron birds
	gun-metal wings shadowing continents
	beaks gripping numbered capsules of yellow gas
	claws dripping red on great steel members
	aimed to ejaculate death-clouds of anti-life

	I cannot give you God
	or a happy life
	...
	but even as the pavements weep beneath your feet
	I can give you a longing for life
	...
	and when the morning comes
	don't look into the soldiers' eyes
	stare straight ahead
	keep the flagpole steady
	and we will reach the other side together.

	Watch towers guard the perimeter,
	inside lines of metal cages
	open to an alien sky.
	They keep hens like this
	...
	Here though, the men are separated
	from home and law,
	exposed, iron-cuffed

	Leda was out on the boating lake
	on pedalo21,
	with her Walkman on,
	a Cadbury's Flake,
	& a copy of Cosmopolitan
	when over the pond
	through the sink and sump,
	the household junk
	& used Fetherlite
	condoms, swam
	a swan,

	it defies all trade description
	said the Citizen's Advice,
	though could be a carthorse
	with a dildo of course,
	riddled with ringworm & lice

La poesie ne sera sauvee du dedain actuel que par une poignee de femmes evadees vers l'humain.

	He didn't wait for night to arrive
	to go to bed.
	He lay his dreams on a pillow of pebbles.
	He was more than a little perturbed by the nearness of a love.
	but he shrugged it off at the frontier of the journey
	he would never complete.

	He didn't wait for the deluge to come but disappeared
	into the desert that poured into him.

	He had made the mistake of approaching
	what could not yet be and of remembering it.

This publication from the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Salzburg is a mighty volume with 194 pages dedicated to translations, reviews, and new poetry from more than 45 contributors.

With so much poetry packed into this perfect bound journal, it is difficult to decide where to begin. D.M. de Silva's translations of Josef Weinheber's work was particularly interesting in that one of the poems, THE TRANSLATOR, is about the very subject of translating.

	What do you mean translate? — if anything
	It is myself I translate: the enterprise
	Wills that I leap from my own bank's known edge
	To that other, stranger. And, what there the magic
	Key of language keeps securely locked,
	How shall I open it with this, my own,
	Which does not always work in my own house
	To lock or unlock, keeping secret chambers
	Safe from the intrusion of my clumsy search.

The bulk of the poetry here is original work and, as is often the case in journals, offers a wide variety. Perhaps in the case of POETRY SALZBURG REVIEW, the variety is enriched by the geographical spread of the contributors. There is poetry from England, South Africa, Brazil, Romania, India, and many other countries to provide a multi-cultural, multi-national view of the best that poetry has to offer today.

Klaus Martens' essay on the poetry of Thomas Lux made for fascinating reading. I was not familiar with this poet but the depth of the essay served as a perfect introduction with a reference list that would make for a lifetime's worth of further reading.

Rather than trying to include a detailed list of the new poetry, I will end by choosing an extract from one that sat rather well with me. William Bedford's COLLECTING BOTTLE TOPS was an absolute joy to read. It begins:

	Emptied into the yard, the sack of bottle tops
	spun like silver fish on washed down cobbles,
	clattered and shimmered like a field of coins

	When my father got home, he danced on cobbles,
	racing across the yard in a drunken waltz,
	cursing publicans and my deranged collections - 
	of stamps, of fish, and now silver marbles - 
	skidding beneath his feet like unspendable coins.
	Delighted, the neighbour came to her door
	and asked if he was celebrating the new year,
	six months early.

In his editorial, Wolfgang Görtschacher has much to say on the lack of subscribers to poetry journals. He considers benefits to all if more people chose to support the independent magazines.

We could even turn Poetry Salzburg Review into a triquarterly magazine, or, if deserted by our better judgment, start making token payments

This is the first issue of PSR that I've ever read from cover to cover and I must say I'm impressed. The production values are high and the contents are excellent, including a great variety of poetry interspersed with intelligent reviews and interviews. The contributors come from across the globe, including Canada, UK, Greece and Hungary. The poetry (some in translation) comes in a wide range of styles, with a wide range of thematic concerns. Many of the poets are concerned with everyday life, and most offer insights. Daniel Thomas Moran for example gives clear sighted look at a day WHEN NOTHING HAPPENS:

	I was there in the morning,
	a fresh mug of coffee
	sending the aroma of waking
	up from the table beside me.

			The girl who shaved
	her teddy's belly when he needed an operation.

	If you ask about History
	they'll tell you
	that it only speaks
	in the subjunctive of the wind

	You speak —  double talk. 
	You dream — double dreams.
	You live —  double life
	But you only jump out the window once.

	random sample jukebox alarm
	foregrounded word acquisition

	born into language remembering

		So three years more, then back
	Again. Hauled my boots onto Northeast Ridge
	And camped three days there, waiting out a storm.
	Altitude sick, nearly blown off the edge —
	And still I had to take another crack.,
	But third time's lucky! Great I'm feeling warm.