Kirjahaku

Independence Day moves on from previous work, while still retaining some continuities in theme, style and approach. It is a book of journeys, literal and metaphorical, making use of ekphrastic techniques. The poems here start out from north London, taking the reader to San Francisco, New York, Baku, Kuala Lumpur, France, Russia, and back again, while remaining firmly grounded in the writer's locale. As ever, political realities and social issues are not neglected; these poems move to a contemporary music without losing seriousness of purpose without resorting to agit-prop.

In My Dreams, Again is Brian Docherty's fifth full collection of new poems, written in north London over several years. Once again, he takes the reader on a journey to places some readers might be familiar with, and some detours and side trips. His favourite locations, such as San Francisco, are on the tour itinerary, narrated in the blend of politics, social comment and black humour for which his work is noted, but there might also be a few surprises along the way. Brian Docherty is a resident alien . . . Woke up this Morning is a hitch-hiker's guide to cultural alienation and appropriation, from Glasgow to San Francisco and back. It is a book about real and imagined journeys to other worlds that always seem less alien than our own, a series of studies in estrangement and exile - Stanley Spencer in Cookham, Dracula in Whitby, Gauguin on Tahiti, Muddy Waters in Chicago. (Andy Croft, New Poetry column, Morning Star)