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The Architecture of Chance reviewed in The Stinging Fly

Issue 32 Vol 2 (Winter 2015-16) of The Stinging Fly magazine is particularly strong on poetry, having enlisted the services of Billy Ramsell as guest poetry editor. A selection of poets with work in the issue were commissioned to write short additional pieces (souterrains) functioning as "archaeological features" existing "somehow under" the poems. Also included are poetry-related essays and an interview, as well as the usual 'featured poet' slot which in this issue goes to Elaine Cosgrove.

In the reviews section, Alan Jude Moore casts an eye on The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry - while Stephen Connolly reviews Miriam Gamble's Pirate Music alongside my latest book The Architecture of Chance. Among much else, Connolly writes of The Architecture of Chance that its "focus on composition moves towards explaining the book's title, its paradoxical concerns with orchestrating multiple possibilities," and that "life in a late-capitalist society is interrogated throughout." He quotes from my recent essay in Poetry Ireland's literary pamphlet Trumpet as an aid towards interpreting the work in what is an appreciative discussion of the book and its intentions.

My thanks to Billy Ramsell and to The Stinging Fly for their attention, and to Stephen Connolly for his dedicated reading. Though unfortunately my name is misspelled throughout the issue...

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