NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
An independent small press poetry review
 STEVE DOLPHY: THE CRY OF THE DUCK EGG SELLER Ram Publications 12 Eliot Vale Blackheath London SE3 OUW UK ISBN 0 9545630 1 8 £4.85 [US$10] post free available direct from the author at 265 High St. Eastleigh Hampshire SO50 5NB UK UK cheques payable to "Stephen Smith" email the author        Web design by  This page last updated: 11th December 2007. |
STEVE DOLPHY: THE CRY OF THE DUCK EGG SELLER | |
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Steve Dolphy lived in Vietnam from 1997 to 2001; apart from two haiku book-ending this selection the other 77 were written while he was in Vietnam, the first half dealing with Hanoi where he lived and worked, the rest with the city of Hue which is his wife's hometown and where he got married. The haiku are mostly precise and well-crafted, and strikingly original in the image they draw, as shown by the following two examples: January morning shivering bread girls hug warm loaves watermelon stall the smile of the fruit seller a slice taken outThree more examples also illustrate the poet's wry and confident sculpting of a particular situation or idea:
long winter walk
picking up a stone
to accompany me
seafood restaurant
the waiter pulls a hook
from a diner's throat
uneasy with stepchildren
wishing he knew
a magic trick to do
Steve Dolphy is able to compress a host of images and juxtapositions into his handful of words:
lunchtime news
imagining famine
between mouthfuls
sunlit lounge
the baby reaches
for her shadow
noon sun
the only thing moving
a bead of sweat
Some excellent work here.
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| Reviewer: Alan Hardy. |