Wednesday 28 July 2010

Magazine Moment (15): The Seventh Quarry

Swansea Bay from Mumbles,
with the Swansea-Cork ferry


I was delighted when the Summer 2010 edition [issue 12] of The Seventh Quarry arrived today, featuring an international spread of work from Wales, England, Holland, Romania, Italy, Catalonia, Israel, South Africa, Canada and America.

The magazine includes an interview with one of the leading Catalonian poets, Dr August Bover. Dr Kristine Doll poses interesting questions about the 'difficult to understand' label that attaches itself to the art of poetry.* I had the privilege of meeting August at a stimulating and memorable workshop in the Dylan Thomas Centre some months ago. Allan Peterson appears on p.5 as the issue's poet in profile.

The magazine opens with a poetry sequence including a moving piece, A Circle of Meadow, by Vince Clemente, The Seventh Quarry's Consulting Editor for America. A stylish concrete poem, Elephant, by Dave Lewis from Wales is embedded with 'memories' and 'stories' from the watering holes. Gerald England's witty contribution seems to me to combine the lazy dog pangram with a kind of abcedarium. I much enjoyed Gillian Drake's evocative poem, Lost - and am delighted that my poem, The Women of Linear B, has been included on p.11.

In Chapter 1 - Swansea Bay we are treated to an excerpt from a forthcoming Cross-Cultural Communications publication, Love For Ever Meridian; Finding Dylan Thomas in the 21st Century by John Dotson, who enjoyed 'taking in the shore-places of Dylan the boy' on a recent visit to South Wales.

The penultimate page of this issue carries a description of the latest Poet to Poet chapbook, Nightwatch by Aeronwy Thomas and Maria Mazziotti Gillan, in the series published jointly by Cross-Cultural Communications and The Seventh Quarry Press ... of which more perhaps in a future post.

Thank you, Peter, once again for another bumper edition!


* Postscript: On the subject of the meaning of poetry, there is a substantial article entitled by The Virtue of Verse by George Watson, fellow at St John's College, Cambridge in the current Times Higher Education Supplement (29 July-4 Aug 2010) - available online, with livelink highlighted above.


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N.B. If you would like to take out a subscription
to The Seventh Quarry poetry magazine,
details can be found here.

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