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Tomaž Šalamun/ The Death of Frank O’Hara 49 Brian Henry Checkered Christ 51 CAConrad Three poems from Listen to the Golden Boomerang 52 Oluwaseun Olayiwola re: God 55 Cleanness 56 Jenny George Orpheus in Spring 57 Anniversary 57 Carrier Bag 58 Peter Thickett Longiflorum 59 Sewer Exegesis 60 Annie Fan Sad Girl Poem 61 Fahad Al-Amoudi Bet 62 Fiona Benson Exorcism: I’ll give you something ... 63 Exorcism: Get a Grip 64 Exorcism: Wild Horses 65 Danez Smith The Slap 66 Nine Means No in German 68 Essay Helen Charman On Bernadette Mayer 69 Gallery Barry Anthony Finan 74 Dialogue Mona Kareem Waiting for Language 78 and Sara Elkamel Essay Declan Ryan Re-reading Douglas Dunn 83 A Mutual Agitation Gboyega Odubanjo and Don Paterson 88 Reviews Kate Simpson on Jorie Graham, Stephen Watts and Brenda Shaughnessy 106 Kit Fan on Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Mark Pajak and Philip Gross 112 alice hiller on Paul Tran and Chen Chen 117 Joanna Lee on Bryony Littefair and Ramona Herdman 121 Lucy Mercer on Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa and Kirsten Irving 125 Joey Connolly on Mark Dickinson and Zoë Skoulding 130 Zakia Carpenter-Hall on Anthony Anaxagorou and Zaffar Kunial 134 The National Poetry Competition 2022 139
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EDITORIAL In his 2009 Lecture for The Poetry Society, the late Charles Simic presents a scene in which he is carrying groceries from his car when he is suddenly stunned by a phone call offering him the American Laureateship. ‘No way’, he thinks, for all the reasons we might imagine, before being talked into accepting. Though I do not claim a weighty similarity here, I am starting to comprehend the shudder of responsibility. The phone call offering the editorship of The Poetry Review came just as I sat down with a friend in a pub, and I have to admit that while my mouth was saying yes, the rest of me was wondering what I was getting myself into. Later in the same lecture, Simic speaks of a history of competing factions, disagreement and conflicting attitudes within the poetry community – and these probably have to persist in any healthy art form. The challenge, the ‘responsibility’, in the context of this job, is that it’s not enough to blindly act on one’s own poetic interests, there is instead a need to honour (and hopefully do justice to) a broader church of poetics. I’m paraphrasing Don Paterson here, in his conversation within these pages with Gboyega Odubanjo. * Here’s a soothing thought: since there is no singular way good poetry takes place, no monolithic standard by which it can be measured, then no individual can be reasonably expected to offer a definitive account

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Tomaž Šalamun/ The Death of Frank O’Hara 49 Brian Henry Checkered Christ 51 CAConrad Three poems from Listen to the

Golden Boomerang 52

Oluwaseun Olayiwola re: God 55

Cleanness 56

Jenny George Orpheus in Spring 57 Anniversary 57 Carrier Bag 58 Peter Thickett Longiflorum 59 Sewer Exegesis 60 Annie Fan Sad Girl Poem 61 Fahad Al-Amoudi Bet 62 Fiona Benson Exorcism: I’ll give you something ... 63 Exorcism: Get a Grip 64 Exorcism: Wild Horses 65 Danez Smith The Slap 66 Nine Means No in German 68

Essay Helen Charman On Bernadette Mayer 69

Gallery Barry Anthony Finan 74

Dialogue Mona Kareem Waiting for Language 78 and Sara Elkamel

Essay Declan Ryan Re-reading Douglas Dunn 83 A Mutual Agitation Gboyega Odubanjo and Don Paterson 88 Reviews Kate Simpson on Jorie Graham, Stephen Watts and Brenda Shaughnessy 106 Kit Fan on Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Mark Pajak and Philip Gross 112 alice hiller on Paul Tran and Chen Chen 117 Joanna Lee on Bryony Littefair and Ramona Herdman 121 Lucy Mercer on Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa and Kirsten Irving 125 Joey Connolly on Mark Dickinson and Zoë Skoulding 130 Zakia Carpenter-Hall on Anthony Anaxagorou and Zaffar Kunial 134 The National Poetry Competition 2022 139

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