NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
Liminal Pleasures
Chykernyk
Laflouder Fields
Mullion
Cornwall
TR12 7EA
UK
or
100 Via Monastero
Cessapalombo
MC 62020
Italia
ISBN 1750-4112
£3.50 [€5]
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This page last updated: 14th December 2007. 		Liminal Pleasures #1

In BURNT NORTON the poet T S Eliot has a line:

	Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Producing the first number of a spanking new poetry magazine must be a motivating time for those involved one would have thought. It's curious that Andrew Nightingale fails to communicate any real sense of excitement in his first editorial. He tells his readers that for now he plans to:
let some kind of identity for the magazine develop semi-autonomously
and that co-editor Simon Ramsey had:
not so very much to do in this first issue.
That's a pity. And maybe that's the problem, for there was a deal in this first issue that might not have made it across that second editorial desk.

Consider an extract from NONEXISTENCE by Kenji Siratori, the Japanese cyberpunk writer:

	hyperreal HIV=scanners gene-dub of the corpse city
	technojunkies' is debugged to non resettable genomics
	strategy circuit that was processed to the paradise apparatus
	of the human body pill cruel emulator murder-gimmick of
and so on. And now imagine poring over a whole page of similar unpunctuated text. Siratori admits:
his relentless prose is nonsensical in the extreme
If Siratori has whetted your appetite there's a Giles Goodland poem ZERO:
	investors would face a		capital gains tax on
	Japanese armies: not a		in the sky, and ammunition
	junction is a			impedance connection between two 
	low-emission vehicles & a	—emission vehicle
and so on for two complete pages.

Here's a line from ANCHORING ST: HERMIT KRAB W/CON MAN I.D. ENTITY (5.11+/X) by Derek White:

	2 x 8.8 mm tessellated ropes (static)
and the complete poem APPLES from James Davies:
	Written, typed, altered, deleted
	15.07.05
A triple dose of erotica from Ann Marie Eldon, a poetess with a fertile imagination, is served up at the end; presumably as an antidote to all the boys-own technical stuff. Her LOST PAINTINGS poems are strictly for adults only. I scoured them for a suitable line or two:
	section. Oui! they told me there was a defection dans le vent
	a nonagronomic usage/abusage but I must remember I have my
	followers
In FEEDING THE MONKEY, one of the more conventional offerings, Berndt Sellheim, an Australian in Paris writes:
	where you wake, where you sleep,
	is now the punch-clock's
	operative function. Surrender
	being more attractive than
	the nightmare's stroll with fading underwear elastic
	and it seems easier, doesn't it? to just
	plug in.
And when all is said and done that may be so. But isn't it all too effortless perhaps? Who knows? Time will tell if there's anything beyond the avant-garde other than appetency and eructation or if there's any future employment for Simon Ramsey's in-tray.

There's an apposite line in Rupert Loydell's poem THE GROUND ROSE, one of his three contributions, which conveys the paradox:

	The view from down here is superb.
Issue one is out. Work is invited for issue two. Why not send something fanciful in? The more far-fetched, empty of meaning and whimsical the better, I'd venture to suggest.

Printed in Italy on good paper and fairly priced it's just about worth a look.

reviewer: Gwilym Williams.
Liminal Pleasures #2

Pocket sized, in the form of 5 pamphlets. One of the pamphlets is an anthology and the other four are by individual poets. A favourite has to be MAKE POETRY HISTORY, the pamphlet by Rupert Loydell. The print size is really small and hard on the eyes, but there again the words can be seen as part of the various visuals. I think I had better leave the reader to decide what it is about. Suffice to say it has sexual overtones. Rupert Loydell has carefully put together a set of black and white paroxysms on communication — a small diamond radiating with poetic concepts. The visual form of the pamphlet is exciting and I would love to see this one performed.

The print size is larger in the anthology but it is still quite small. What should we make of the following?

		The pigs in the fields share
	Fingers burnt by light bulbs what
	Was I not thinking to return no wiser
	Into the city
These lines are from AMID THE RAGE OF THE ROOM THE GESTURE by David Berridge, a longish poem that mentions an ice cream maker and also tortoises.

The work in this issue of LIMINAL PLEASURES certainly covers a range of styles and draws on the work of British 1990s experimentalists.

reviewer: Doreen King.