A collection of poetry, written over half a lifetime. Hayley Ann Solomon focuses primarily on the pursuit of excellence, immortality achieved through finite life, love in all its forms, and social justice. As it waxes and wanes, the collection cycles through sequences of lyrical ballads, sonnets, elegies, haiku, snippets of nonsensical verse; all blended with a substantial dose of existential philosophy and social comment.

The poems cover a full spectrum, from the darkest psycho-social moments, to zeniths of absolute joy. The liberal use of consonance, assonance, alliteration, echoes and half-echoes, rhyme and cross-rhyme make for a style rich in sound-play. This, together with strong metrical awareness – very often iambic or trochaic pentameter and tetrameter – evokes a flow that is quite typically euphonic. There is therefore a sense of lyricism despite a broad diversity of  topics and moods. /   The anthology evolves to become a promise of regeneration, in synchrony with the phases of the moon, from which it takes its celestial title.

Solomon lives on the South Island of New Zealand.


Grandfather’s Robin collects 63 poems written or completed since Gillian Bickley’s last poetry collection, Perceptions, was published in 2012. To some extent these new poems reflect her activities, thoughts and experiences during the period from 2012, including in Hong Kong and Andorra. But some concern previous experiences, recorded in earlier years. At least one – the sympathetic and affectionate portrait of her maternal grandfather – is a synthesis of childhood memories. She responds to people, to fellow-creatures (defined from a biblical perspective and including mammals, birds, trees, the moon and human manufactures), considers social behaviour (including as a response to political change, and as reflected in exhibited works and their visitors), and also reflects on concepts of eschatology and survival. She aims to communicate as simply as possible and to elicit or extend what her readers may already know from their own different lives and experiences.

"So many reasons to enjoy Gillian Bickley’s luminous poetry – humor, depth and wisdom.  Through her verse we feel deep empathy for a grandfather, a bus driver, a waiter offering soft food to toothless aunties and grandmas, a beloved housekeeper.

"It is a measure of Gillian Bickley’s humanity, that she feels the wonder and dilemma of our shared lives with each other, with cats, birds, lemurs, and a gorilla.   She speaks for the trees.  Bickley takes us to her Pyrenees, to Andorra – exotic and mundane.
Lovely and evocative, Bickley’s powers of observation and precise, selective description lend many of these poems the power of fine portraiture, a sepia photograph, where we see into the eyes, where we discover essence."

Jack Mayer,Vermont, USA. 25 June 2020

A wide-ranging collection of poems on varied subjects and in different voices by the American poet, D. J. Hamilton. The poems are drawn primarily from his years spent in Mexico and Central America, as well as the country of his birth.

The characters and voices of the poems in Hummingbird range across time and distance, from Wisconsin farms to Mexico, from Eve to Ezra Pound, from innocent young lovers to guilty priests and Greek myths to current conflicts. The poems vary in tone from contemplative to comical, and hopeful to heartbreaking. There are poems of intellectual and philosophical questioning, love poems, poems that grieve for the dead, and poems that rage at injustice and the abuse of power. The poems show a variety of poetic influences including Modernism, Organic Form, Imagism, and the idea of the line as a unit of perception, Many poems are written about characters, or in the voices of characters, sometimes multiple characters and dialogue. There is also a great variety of topics and themes: Wonder and appreciation for the beauty of the natural world; the nature of time; the nature of language; political oppression; romantic and sensual love – often as a vehicle for self-discovery. The poems are not arranged chronologically. The sudden shifts of tone, the many different topics and themes, and the seeming contradiction of very different types of poems are all deliberate choices. This book, like life itself, doesn’t follow a straight line, but zigzags there and here, with unforeseen twists and turns, abrupt reversals, and inevitable returns. Like a hummingbird.

Observations of life, from East to West: the transformation of Hong Kong over the years; the beauties and troubles of Asia and of other countries; the re-visitation of Italy, her homeland, after many years of living abroad. Also vivid descriptions of the many facets of everyday life, including love, friendship, motherhood, and writing.

 Throughout the collection, water is a challenge but always represents renewal. The poet observes how life unfolds, from East to West: the transformation of Hong Kong over the years; the beauties and troubles of Asia and of other countries; the re-visitation of her homeland – a place of longing and contradictions – which appears at times blurred, after many years of living abroad. And in the last section of the book, through the wide use of metaphors, the reader will find vivid descriptions of the many facets of everyday life – among which are love, friendship, motherhood, and writing. 

Uncharted waters embodies, for Paola Caronni, physical places as well as literary tropes. 

Uncharted waters separate the poet from her Motherland, and keep apart not only continents, but people, traditions, sights, sounds and smells, encountered during her many travels. The Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, the seas of Asia and beyond, as well as rivers, lakes, and water in general, are a constant presence in this collection. 

Uncharted Waters is also about acquiring, using, and writing in a foreign language, English, a deep ocean which, in all its linguistic and literary expressions, has always fascinated the poet. As in the physical world, these waters border realms that apparently look safe – and the author, in fact, writes her first poetry collection in English – but they harbour many dark caverns, unknown secrets too. 

VIOLET is the expression of a woman seeking, achieving and deeply experiencing romantic and sensual love. The poems follow a similar trajectory to those of the English metaphysical poet John Donne and end with the persona equally intensely soliciting the embrace of God.

CAROLINA ILICA has been described as the most important Romanian woman poet of the second half of the Twentieth Century. Born in the village of Vidra, Vârfurile commune, Arad county, she graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, in 1975. She is Vice-president and Artistic Director of the Foundation and Cultural Organisation, the International Academy Orient-Occident and Artistic director and Chairman of the Jury of the International Festival, Curtea de Argeş Poetry Nights. A member of several International Academies and Associations of Literature, Science and Arts, she is highly productive as translator, essayist, teacher, journalist and diplomat as well as with her poetic work. She was been awarded numerous national and international prizes.