IN THE RIALTO
The purpose of this section of the site is to allow us to showcase or preview poems in our publications. We hope to invite writers of the poems to respond and give their view of the work.Poetry in the rialto
A VISION FOR THE TOPOGRAPHICAL FUTURE OF EAST ANGLIA by Matt Haw
Michael and I had a moment of mild mutual surprise: I said I’d blog about this poem and he said he’d mentioned it in his draft newsletter. Turns out we are both fans of Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker…
Sanctuary by Kate White
I admire the way this poem dances between the worlds of the medieval anchoress and the modern urban landscape ( I think this phone box is historically a bit earlier than now, sometime before we all got hold of mobile phones). I like the playful contrasts between the language of ‘epiphany’ and ‘anointed’ and that of the ‘closed off-licence’ and the lack of sex workers ‘cards’…
Julie’s boat is in the field behind my house by Judith Willson
his is such a rich poem – only sixteen lines but look where it takes you. Maybe I should qualify that and say look where it takes me. What the reader brings to the poem is a significant factor. Anyway I’m right in there at the start with the linen line.
An undesirable garden by Janet Rogerson
Most people are used to cement being delivered in ready-mix lorries, but it’s possible to mix your own. I spent a certain amount of time staring at cement mixers as a child, so, although one of our readers didn’t get the opening three lines, I got them entirely.
The Seagull now eating my sandwich by Emily Wills
I’m usually wary of poems where the title runs straight into the first line, but this works, enlarging the immediacy of the ‘NOW’, the shock of the event. There’s such a lot going on in this poem (and here’s one of the whys of my liking poetry, its ability to layer so much together in short spaces).
Quiet road home by Dean Parkin
This is an intense poem, much bigger than it looks, very neatly bracketed by its opening, ‘We haven’t spoken for miles’ and closing ‘It’s the talking I miss’. The whole content, the ‘where exactly is this relationship at?’
What you left out by Laura Scott
I’ve been pre-occupied recently with the gap between my experience of poetry and what I perceive (partly through the unwillingness of readers to buy poetry) to be most people’s experience of it.
Rialto Blogs
HOME (FOR A MONTH) IN GRASMERE
In March this year it was my great fortune to stay in Grasmere with the Wordsworth Trust as their poet in residence. The reach of the Trust is huge and I would urge anyone who doesn’t know about them to find out: https://wordsworth.org.uk/ The brief for the residency...
THE RIALTO 91 – WHAT’S IN IT?
So what’s in the new issue of The Rialto when it eventually escapes from the Babylon of the Royal Mail and gets itself delivered? Does it live up to the old Poet Laureate’s remark, back in the 1980’s, about being ‘very full and varied’? I think it does. There’s a good...
Magic in the reeds
Magic in the reeds: A day at Wicken Fen with Professor Nick Davies by Alexandra Davis “And I …will … Show thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmoset. I’ll bring thee To clustering filberts, and sometimes I’ll...
1 Poultry
Shoot up in the fast lift, poke the faux gras with toothpick heels. Late lunch at the Coq d’Argent – accept a drink, plan your exit. After two pm the old religion can be smelt – some urban plague myth – even here, halfway to the holding stacks...
“Din of voices”: on some poems in The Rialto 89
Since issue 89 of The Rialto had its “official” launch at Poetry in Aldeburgh recently – with barnstorming readings from Seraphima Kennedy, Richard Osmond and Elisabeth Sennitt Clough, hosted by editor Michael Mackmin – I thought now might be a good time to shine an...
SEAN WAI KEUNG
‘i think i want to write about race’ really thats really cool can you do that arent you white o so you decided to go full american then will you send me your poems i think thats a good move for you are they going to be performance poems i thought you hated that sort...
Cold Fire – The Bowie launch event
We don't tend to often get decent photos of launches, however Jon Stone took a fair few really good shots including some of the Bowie-oke. and we thought it might be nice to share some of them. We've tried to find one of everybody from the pictures we have, apologies...
The Rialto Open Pamphlet Competition 2016: results
We are delighted to announce that Sean Wai Keung has won The Rialto’s first Open Pamphlet Competition. Hannah Lowe, our judge, says: “I loved these poems for their simultaneous sense of puzzlement and wisdom about the world, and specifically the things Sean Wai Keung...
Nature and Place
We have had a few anxious emails asking what exactly we are looking for in entries for this competition, (apart, of course, from poems that reach out and intoxicate the reader). I'm going to try to answer this, but unfortunately, for those of you who like clear and...
Kate Wakeling on Writing
It’s taken me ages to find my way with writing, to feel that I was allowed, internally, to get on with it. From there, it’s been a brilliant and slightly terrifying experience to put a first pamphlet together, and I’ve maybe not yet quite caught up with the idea of it...
A challenge and response
In your editorial to Rialto 84 you challenged your readers to challenge you and Fiona. Taking you at your word, here’s my challenge.
Your Editorial vaunts the magazine’s eclecticism. What struck me however was not the wide ranging diversity of the poems in this issue…
Education in poetry
This is the first of what will hopefully become an ongoing series of guest blogs featuring regularly on The Rialto website.
Education in poetry
During the day, when I’m not