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This page last updated: 22nd February 2009.


Cover Aabye issue B

AABYE
(formerly New Hope International Writing)

Cover design by Steve Leighton.


"AABYE presents a kaleidoscope of modern poetry, catholic in its content, which ranges from a standard form of sonnet in the English style to more complex poems in a more modern idiom. The sonnet "Two Dawns" by Eileen Winch had immediate appeal for me. but I also found that other more complex poems amply repaid re-reading. A few however seemed rather slight and could be read as prose rather than poetry.

There was also a liberal sprinkling of haiku and senryu in both the traditional and modern form, including some written by well-known names. Donna Farley's "The Sound Of Two Realities Diverging" was an interesting reflection on Basho's famous Frog haiku. This fragment gives the flavour:


	Here, though, I make my quantum leap;
	a plunge into the water, then a landing upon
	his page, a metamorphosis into tadpoles
	waving inky tails like laughter.
There was also a 4 page haibun (mixture of prose and haiku) by David Cobb - President of The British Haiku Society, describing a visit to the operating theatre. Rich in observation it contained some amusing touches, in spite of the occasion, ending with:

	something injected
	not hearing the end
	of my laughter.
There was a touching poem by Kenneth C. Steven called 'Visiting Hour" which showed me a different side to this widely published poet.

	I go gratefully, glad to reach
	The wide blue skies of the world outside,
	Clutching at the wild, mad hope that you will leave
	The other self that haunts you here behind -
	Its terrible, leprous hide -
	Break into the beautiful, smooth skin of childhood
	And come back home. 
Previously I have admired his richly descriptive poems centred mainly on the natural world.

The American poet Don Ammons, well known for his haiku, who lives in West Jutland in Denmark has contributed a poem "And His Death Was Death", describing a voluntary exile, I quote a few lines:


	But all the time he was keeping his
	English dose. laying it under his hands,
	caressing, lifting it to his tongue,
	allowing it to melt like sugar ...
Although not perhaps a magazine for the strict traditionalist. AABYE provides a very good read for those looking for innovation, excitement and adventure in their poetry reading. A short excerpt from the poem "Crescendo" by the American poet Lucien Stryk, editor of the acclaimed Penguin Book of Zen Poetry, perhaps best illustrates the essence of this interesting magazine.

	Lightening Cinder-flash zips
	down the cobnut tree. Drawn

	like a boatman in a riptide
	squall, tipsied by wind, rain,

	I watch leaves shimmy to
	the oldest music in the world,
	fierce autumn colours washed out

	in a blink...

This review by Ron Wollard of issue B was first published in Reach


ISSN 1461-6033