POETRY BIRMINGHAM
Literary Journal

I S S U E 6

Writing about trees, birds, and flowers is political. Writing with the lyric ‘I’ is political. Particularly so when you’re seen primarily as part of some collective them, and as someone who should write predominantly about the collective concerns of them. In that instance, the ‘I’ refusing to be subsumed by the collective chorus—often majoritarian on its own terms and often supremacist in its relation to the marginalised within it—is the resisting, the dissenting voice. The ‘I’ that refuses the controlling expectation of us and the marginalising exclusion of them.

—Editorial, PBLJ6, Naush Sabah

C O N T E N T S

Prose

Liz Berry on women poets with Mona Arshi, Fiona Benson, Malika Booker, Hannah Lowe, and Pascale Petit • Gerry Cambridge on Philip Larkin’s ‘Love Again’ • Sana Goyal reviews how the first sparks became visible, A Terrible Thing, and Archway Sonnets • Khaled Hakim reviews How the Hell Are You?, John Glenday’s Selected Poems, and Leni’s Triumph • Ibrahim Hirsi on Haaji Aadan Ahmed Af-Qaloo’ • Sara Kazmi reviews The Taxidermist and Ripe • Victoria Moul reviews Staying Human and New Poetries VIII • Naima Rashid on Perveen Shakir • Jake Reynolds on John Ashbery • Yomi Ṣode on performance and A Little Devil in America • Dareen Tatour’s prison memoir • Jeremy Wikeley on A Fire Shared • April Yee on Sergius Seeks Bacchus and The Year of Blue Water

Poets

Jannat Ahmed • Haaji Aadan Ahmed Af-Qaloo’ • Courtney Conrad • Katherine Duffy • Vera Fibisan • Rhoda Greaves • John Greening • Eve Grubin • Robert Hamberger • Nicola Heaney • Matt Howard • Victoria Kennefick • Hannah Lowe • John McCullough • Cheryl Moskowitz • Andrew Neilson • Elizabeth O’Connor • Isaac Ouro-Gnao • Stewart Sanderson • Perveen Shakir • Dareen Tatour • April Yee