From the Archives - Reviews

Going into print is not recommended for the faint-hearted, thin-skinned or overly sensitive. The poems might look nice on the page in a magazine or book but once you've gone in vainglorious search of critical acclaim, you only have yourself to blame if not everyone shares your high opinion of your verses. The critic's job is not to make you feel better but to recommend to other readers whether they think your work is worth their time and attention. So if you are labelled as 'glib' , done by numbers or they've never heard of you, well, at least they were honest. In fact, this selection of reviews of my booklets isn't bad at all. Martin Stannard in PQR is guarded at best on Reptiles in Love in 1997.

Phil Simmons in the same magazine, in 2002, is as kind as he can be about Re-Reading Derrida on a Train.

R.G. Felton in South 36 in 2007 doesn't have a bad word among the few he allocated to Walking on Water.

But Giles Darvill is welcome to a drink if we ever meet for his generous appreciation of Re-Read in South 31 in 2005. That's the sort of appreciation anybody would be delighted with, when it's clear that the critic had read it, saw the point of it and was prepared to say so. I'd prefer a review like that any day rather than any kind of award or prize