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New: Annual Orbis Poetry Prize
sponsored by The Word Masala Foundation (Yogesh Patel)

The first prize of £200 will be awarded

to the best poem published in the magazine during 2025

Two runners-up will receive £25 each.

(This is in addition to the Orbis Readers’ Award of £50
plus £50 between the runners-up)

Please continue to vote for your favourite poem in every issue
keeping a record of the choices each time.

Then in December, vote for the best one for the year;

Results will be announced in #2015, Spring 2026.

The VOLE Summer Competition

​’AUTUMN MAKES ME SING’

Open to international entries
Entries invited up to 31st July 2024

NO THEME (despite the title):

Dorothy Parker famously said:

‘Summer makes me drowsy.

Autumn makes me sing.

Winter’s pretty lousy,

but I hate Spring.’

Poems on any subject are invited

1st Prize: £50; 2nd Prize: £30; 3rd Prize: £20.

50 poems will be selected and published in an anthology
and all poets included will receive a free copy
www.dempseyandwindle.com/competition.html

New: Annual Orbis Poetry Prize
sponsored by The Word Masala Foundation (Yogesh Patel)

The first prize of £200 will be awarded

to the best poem published in the magazine during 2025

Two runners-up will receive £25 each.

(This is in addition to the Orbis Readers’ Award of £50
plus £50 between the runners-up)

Please continue to vote for your favourite poem in every issue
keeping a record of the choices each time.

Then in December, vote for the best one for the year;

Results will be announced in #2015, Spring 2026.

Orbis 211, Spring 2025

Front cover artwork: ‘Plein Air’ by Jerry LoFaro:
www.jerrylofarodesigns.com/

***

Orbis 200:  What a beautiful looking edition ! Must get this. 
Congratulations on the magazine’s longevity and high standards

  (Anna Saunders, Director at Cheltenham Poetry Festival)

Orbis 200: ‘All the best to you, and to Orbis!’
(Glyn Maxwell; shortlisted for Best Collection in the Forward Prize)


‘Best wishes for the journal –
and congratulations on such a successful magazine over the years’
(Joy Harjo, United States Poet Laureate)

****

Single issue: £6.00 (Overseas: £12/€14/$16);
Subs: £20/4 pa (Overseas: £45/€55/$60)

Associate Editor (Book Reviews): Maria Isakova-Bennett

Reviews by:
Philip Dunkerley, David Harmer, Jenny Hockey,
D.A.Prince, Theresa Sowerby, Pam Thompson

Please note with new collections, press release in first instance
to the Book Reviews Editor – not review copies.

****

At long last, a wee bit of sunshine – but don’t get too carried away.
After all, as Simon Maddrell points out, we’re all alone, thinking,
maybe even wondering what happened to Pat Marum and The Disappeared?
But if you’re ready for A Sound Decision with Jim C. Wilson, Abrahm Beezley
will put it to The Test, allowing for Compressed Time (Diana Pinto),
or for S. C. Flynn to come to the Rescue. Can you maybe solve
Angela Martinot’s quandary: What is that elephant doing in my dream
while Steven Taylor will tell you about another strange Encounter,
like Blaithin Allain and The Sea Bride, or Fran Bourassa, on The Land.
And what’s the difference between John Gilham’s Flâneur
and Rob McClure’s Flâneuse?
Orbis has the answers….

Featured Writer

Julie Burke

The cry of the horseman
Goldilocks: a reflection on a life of crime
A bookish sort of woman
Embraced

Hidden in plain sight

Poets include Blaithin Allain (The Sea Bride); S. C. Flynn (Children of the ice);
Michael Foley (The old man and the wind); Natalie Fry (The Land Turtle);
Rob McClure (The Relativity of Simultaneity); Angela Martinot
(What is that elephant doing in my dream?); Diana Pinto (Compressed Time)

Prose from Gary Duehr (Who’s Afraid Of Bob?);
Ayelet McKenzie (The member of the singing group);
Harry Waight (Man is born on fire)

Translation:
Ma Yongbo and Helen Pletts: 山中醉酒 (Getting Drunk in the Mountains)

Past Master: Pat Farrington on Anne Bradstreet  

Orbis 211 Contributors also include
Aidan Baker; Arthur Broomfield; David Callin; Fíona Donaghey;
Pablo Dubois; Michael Foley; Eve Jackson; Alex Josephy; Ben Keatinge;
Janet Laugharne; Linda King; Robert Leach; Jane McLaughlin;
S Kimbrough McLendon; Sara McNeil; Michael Milburn; Sari Pauloma;
Jean Prior; Purbasha Roy; David Thompson; Natalie Wolf  

 

April 26, Liverpool Playhouse

Reviewed for Writebase: https://writebase.co.uk/

 

8/10

A magical and meaningful production which draws out so many parallels with life today, 80 years on, there are nearly as many lines as those spoken by the excellent cast. In other words, so many lessons to be learned in this iconic tale of animals taking over. Near as damnit, the lunatics running the asylum, with their delusional ideas and grandiose so-called victories.

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Fascinating Aîda

Floral Pavilion, New Brighton

February 1, reviewed for Writebase: https://writebase.co.uk/

 

4*

Who says women of a certain age are invisible? Three cheers for the ever glamorous, and indeed, downright sexy (not sure I’m permitted to say that, but damn sure they wouldn’t object) Fascinating Aîda, who not only make their presence felt but are so in your face you can see the whites of their eyes as the sweetest of harmonies deliver vitriol in the sharpest of points; a fabled, and fabulous, iron fist in a velvet glove. And you needn’t think the audience is full of, shall we say, women in their prime either because

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French House Party

Creative Writing Course, Carcassonne, Southern France

June 20-26

Pen &Think: Tutored Retreat

www.frenchhouseparty.eu/creative-arts/writing/

Read the rest of this entry »

October 19-23

War of the Worlds

https://www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats-on/the-war-of-the-worlds


Reviewed for North West End: www.northwestend.co.uk

 

4*

What a tangled web we weave, especially these days when the Internet ensures all kinds of information reach the parts that other sources can’t get to. Fake news can make people belligerent or else scare them out of their wits, just as it did with the broadcast of ‘War of the Worlds’ years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

October 12-16

Dracula: The Untold Story
imitating the dog and Leeds Playhouse

Adapted and directed by Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks


https://www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats-on/dracula-the-untold-story

 

Reviewed for North West End: www.northwestend.co.uk

3*

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and here we are on Route 66 (or should that be 666?), since that’s their year (read on…), and a young lady has just walked into a police station to confess to murder. But she says her name is Mina Harker…

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July 17- August 30

Pride And Prejudice

Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre

https://www.grosvenorparkopenairtheatre.co.uk/

Reviewed for Writebase: https://writebase.co.uk/

 

4*

It is a truth universally acknowledged – that you absolutely do not need to open with such a well known quote, or variations thereof, even if it establishes that most people know what you are talking about, and a plot summary is not required. Nor that such a familiar tale couldn’t prove damn’d tricky to be given enough of a spin to sprinkle it with stardust and make it fresh and original. It succeeds wonderfully.

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