Eileen Carney Hulme, Geoff Stevens and K V Skene are three deserving poets to come out under the Indigo Dreams imprint. Exciting, biddable books, with full colour gloss covers, interesting cover photos, good information on the back covers, and clean white paper with plenty of poetic content inside.
Eileen Carney Hulme is a personal friend so I know the long wait she had, when she was very loyal to Anthony at Bluechrome during his illness and was waiting to see if he would be able to follow her first, Stroking the Air, with a second book. She was rewarded for her patience when Ronnie Goodyer, who was previously editing at Bluechrome, took her on under his own publishing name, Indigo Dreams, which seems to suit Eileen's work like another title again. I said she's a friend, but she's also a poet I respect and I wrote a blurb for The Space Between Rain which is on the back of the book. So reviewing it as well doesnt quite seem kosher. However, I am obviously recommending it, on the back of the book itself. Go read!
Geoff Stevens is another friend - we can't help knowing active poets like Geoff, who has done so much to help other poets that there's a danger of overlooking the achievement in his own poetry. He's a relentless, open-air writer. I might have come up with the word 'adrenalin' myself, but I see he has used it as part of his title, Islands in the Blood, and other sources of adrenalin. Wales, Ireland, Scotland - there's a whole range of famous coastal pilgrimages here. If you've been to them, you think, Oh yes, if you've heard of them. you think Oh yes. If you havent been to some of them, well, visit them with Geoff. You'll be in the company of a resilient, quirky, ultimately very intelligent annotator and guide.
K V Skene is in some ways more quiet and traditional. She was born in Canada and lives in England, and has published quite extensively in both countries. Her credits include Flarestack, the Interpreter's House, The Journal. Her work is not English in a London-centric way, though it is fashionably vocabulary-conscious. You can Almost Hear their Voices includes many delicately written poems. eg An Appearance of Pelicans. the language slides rather than spits fire.
All these books are well structured and themed - Eileen covers personal loss, among other subjects, Geoff gives an almost selfless, extrovert view of his world, and K V Skene ranges over the social world and cities, despite the pelican. Very fine work in all three books, and a coup for publisher Ronnie Goodyer. Here's his website. You will probably enjoy the soundtrack, but if you dont you can easily turn the juke box off! There's also a wise Inquiry Form for any poets who hope to be considered for publication. [May 2010]