NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
MARTIN COOK: MACKEREL WRAPPERS
Happenstance
21 Hatton Green
Glenrothes
Fife
KY7 4SD
UK
ISBN 978 1 905939 05 3
£4
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This page last updated: 14th December 2007. 		MARTIN COOK: MACKEREL WRAPPERS

Strange characters rub shoulders in odd situations in this first collection from a poet who, according to the back cover

has had a full life.
In the title poems, he regrets
	   the passing
	of unhygienic newspaper
and notes that
	When Romans used old poems
	(or even discarded prose)
	to wrap a fish, their empire
	lasted a thousand years ...
I liked the wry humour of CHRISTMAS LETTER, which neatly sends up the fashion of round robins extolling all the wonderful achievements of family members, but in this case, each one is some kind of disaster, such as Amanda, who
	ran off with a failed sumo wrestler
or Jeremy, who
	was put away for six months
The moving and the mirthful are deftly interwoven in this elegant-looking little collection, of which both Happenstance and Martin Cook should be proud.

reviewer: John Francis Haines.