3 Review(s)

The Book of Euclid introduces new and emerging voices in short story and poetry. Jonathan Carr's 'The Dead Skipper' and Nicola Warwick's-who also has poems in the anthology-'The Moon on a String of Pearls' grasp the immediacy of first person children's voices without condescension Patrick Riordan's winning short story, 'The Book of Euclid', develops this humane humour and something about what it means to be human from another angle; sensitive to the way cliches in the protagonist's voice give not only a sense of character, but subtly convey how we are bound to traditions and assumptions. His work also has immediacy; one that emerges from the details and struggles of life at once sad and comic.Noel Williams winning poems are concerned with words as their point of departure; not in order to convey their rootedness, but to uproot them. Pieces like 'Last trip to Tynemouth' and 'Tying the kite' deploy present tense and innovative phraseology, 'Her hand pursues the kite of him/ but her hand has its own trail.' And this represents the familiar with a new vivacity, something that good poetry has in common with good philosophy, 'I used to ride./ Flinging, leaping, scribbling, grinning./ Ber-dum./ I ate destinations.'