`Back issues of periodicals are read only in hell," writes poet and critic, David Wheatley, in an excellent essay entitled "The Gauntlet; response to the suggestion that second-rate poets are dangerous for Irish poetry" in Volume Five of In Cognito. Given that Wheatley is himself co-editor of Metre, it's a brave comment and throws up the question: what function do ephemeral literary periodicals serve, if further up the scale "for Irish poets, first and second rate, anthologies are still the buses they must catch to career security"?
In Cognito carries a wide range of items. This issue has an interview with John F. Deane, poet and editor of the publishing imprint Dedalus; colour reproductions of paintings by Oliver Comerford; an essay by Desmond Fennell on Heaney, Kavanagh, and a little-known poet called Frederick Robert Higgins; poems by John Montague, Tom McIntyre, and poets who have yet to publish collections - Mary Shine, Kate Davis, Jana Prikryl, Maria Wallace, and Mary Rose Callan.
This is the second outing for the Cork-based The Shop, which mixes poetry with photographs and line-drawings: which makes the magazine visually interesting. The design is excellent, with an outstanding cover illustration by Hammond Journeaux. So it looks different to other Irish poetry magazines, but the form is much the same, begging the question: why yet another literary magazine? Irish poets and poetry magazines sometimes seem too co-dependent: a bit like dogs out for a walk, slavishly marking their territory at every stop along the way. There is, however, a saving international element to The Shop, with names such as Wislawa Szymborska (Poland); Anton Korteweg (The Netherlands); and Adam Czerniawski (Poland).
Brangle is co-published from Belfast and London, and is in the solid poetry periodical tradition. Perhaps one of the most valuable functions of periodicals is to provide a platform for the type of lengthy reviews that newspapers for instance, cannot provide due to pressure of space. Most Irish-published periodicals, however, fish from the same small pond of reviewers, as is obvious by looking through a few of the contributors' listings pages.
Brangle carries a number of reviews, and familiar fish who turn up to review are: David Wheatley on Medbh McGuckian; Caitriona O'Reilly on Michael Longley; Vona Groarke on Paul Muldoon; and Jean Bleakney on Gwyneth Lewis. There are also poems by Wheatley, O'Reilly, and Longley, as well as poems by Adrian RooneyCespedes and Bernard O'Donoghue. The issue's featured writer is Derry-born Emily Cargan, with four poems and a piece of prose.
The Honest Ulsterman is the longest-established of the periodicals mentioned here, and this issue carries a free print by Brian Gallagher: such prints were regular issue with the first HU publications, some 30 years ago. Issue 108 carries an interview with Irish language poet, Cathal O Searcaigh by Niall McGrath, in which the poet comments: "Poetry is language articulating itself at its most acute. To quicken language to that pitch of arousal you have to be in bed with the Muse of that Language."
Poets include Gerald Dawe, Paul Muldoon, Barbara Crooker (US) Rukmini Callimachi (we're not told where he hails from), and Suddhisakti Manibandhu (Thailand). A gripe: contributors' biographical notes are either unsatisfactorily scanty, as in Callimachi's case, or as in the case of Clyde Holmes, author of the following haiku, non-existent. Fleeces are shredded/ in the hill-side's wire fences -/ sky shearing itself.
The Cork Literary Review gives over a good proportion of its sixth volume to publishing the results of its recent poetry and short story competitions, judged respectively by Bernard O'Donoghue and David Marcus. Dympna Dreyer won the poetry section for her poem Against the Tide (after a Semiole chant for the dying) and Stephen Nicholls took first prize for his story, Return of the Yeti. Other published winners include poets John Wakeman (co-editor of The Shop), and Mary O'Gorman, and prose writers Chuck Kruger and Sam Millar.
It's a novelty to see literary competition winners published in this way; usually we only hear the names of winners, and don't get to read the work: apart from their literary merits, curious would-be-competition entrants get a chance to literally check out the competition.
Other eclectic contributions to the CLR include an essay on Thomas Keneally's Irish roots by historian Carl O'Brien; poet Gabriel Fitzmaurice on The Oxford Book of Irish Quotations; and Kavanagh-award winner Michael McCarthy on "Sexuality and Poetry". There is a short prose passage by Alice Taylor; haikus by Giovanni Malito; and an extract from the prison memoirs of Malawi-born Jack Mapanje.
In Cognito, Vol 5, edited by Christopher O'Rourke and Cornelius Browne, £4.99; The Shop, No 2, edited by John Wakeman, Rhiannon Shelley, and Hilary Wakeman, £4; Brangle, No 3, edited by Carol Rumens and Jean Bleakney, £3 (UK); The Honest Ulsterman, Issue 108, edited by Tom Clyde, Ruth Carr, and Frank Sewell, £2.50 (UK); Cork Literary Review, Vol VI, edited by Eugene O'Connell and Liz Willows, £5.99.