South Bank Poetry magazine review - a moment’s peace presented like a gift
South Bank Poetry Issue Six
A slim volume of printed words, South Bank Poetry is straight-forward and serious in its presentation, but in its content, refereshingly less so.
The poems selected by editor Peter Ebsworth have “A London focus or an Urban edge”, according to the inside front cover. In the introduction to issue five, he mentions the pleasure of seeing themes appear among the submissions: “In this issue it’s parks, markets and people who like to be “beside the lido” as well as the seaside.”
This issue contains poems that glisten with perfect lines as we’re invited to “listen to muted mirth” (Wet Night at the National Theatre, Geoffrey Winch), to notice how air before a storm tastes like running your tongue “along a tightly wound guitar string” (Whipcrack, John Morrison), to stand back “as a pride of local youth runs past” (The Art and Craft of Movement: Lloyds Park, E17, Derek Adams), to observe as a girl with “Plaits unravelling into a sheet of hair”, “peels away, up a stairwell, up to the busy sky” (After the RE Lesson, Sarah Westcott). Images that will be branded in my mind’s eye forever.
Human emotion sings out between the lines, particularly in A Cup of Coffee in Regent’s Park by Mark Niel, in Everything Bad by Fiona Moore and in In the Market by Nigel Pollitt. Other poems are harder to digest, but no less resonant for that fact.
Some tell stories that have me entranced, including Anne Welsh’s Mah Jong Player, making me pause to contemplate what the difference is between poetry and flash fiction, if any.
Issue six continues in the same vein, beginning with the powerful opening lines of Fraser Southey’s Westminster Bridge (I had that Wordsworth in my cab this morning): “Heavens! Only a blody poet would dare! / Hold up the traffic to write down the sky.”
There’s a hint of surrealism in this issue, with gems like Andrew Martstrand’s The Wimbledon Train Care Department bringing a new, deliciously unexpected viewpoint to familiar city scenes. The magazine continues like a train journey, carrying us past late night mis-encounters, fleeting potential love-affairs, memories of lives gone off-track…
South Bank Poetry is ideally suited to city living - a few pages to escape into between all the chaos, a moment’s peace beautifully packaged and presented like a gift.
South Bank Poetry issues five and six are available at £3 each, or £5 for both, from Peter Ebsworth, South Bank Poetry, 74 Sylvan Road, London SE19 2RZ. Cheques should be made payable to ‘Peter Ebsworth‘.
Submissions of up to 6 poems are guaranteed a reply if an SASE of C5 size or above is
included.
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