So the third issue of Salt Publishing's online literary journal, Horizon Review, has just been published. Edited by Jane Holland, it's a fascinating, varied, sometimes even satisfyingly infuriating read, and builds on the strengths of its previous issues, proving it can easily compete with the best of the printed mags.Issue 3 includes new poems by David Morley, Helen Ivory, Barbara Smith, Claire Crowther and Sam Riviere; reviews of many recent collections including Hugo Williams' West End Final, Carrie Etter's The Tethers, and a particularly excellent review of Don Paterson's Rain by John McCullough; and a series of interviews, the most interesting, contentious and quotable of these being Vidyan Ravinthiran in conversation with Craig Raine. In fact, I might well post a separate discussion of some of the stuff which Raine has to say here, finding as I did some bits eminently sensible, some disagreeably caustic, and some just downright antagonistic (not entirely a bad thing). I should also add that what he has to say is on occasion pretty funny, often illuminating, and... hell, just go and read it and I'll stop blathering on.
Also, for those interested (jumping from Don Paterson's aforementioned Forward Prize-winning Rain to Emma Jones's Best First Collection-winning The Striped World) in this week's issue of the Times Literary Supplement (October 16, No 5559) my reviews of both Jones's book and fellow Australian poet Kevin Hart's Young Rain will appear. Do check them out if you can.