Dream Catcher 21 celebrates the Canadian poet David Haskins and the American-Croatian poet, translator, and critic Mario Susko. Other highlights are two poems by Myra Schneider and new translations of work by the famous 20th century Austrian poet, Ingeborg Bachmann as well as excellent stories from the young Canadian-Welsh writer Tyler Keevil and Carol Topolski, whose novel Monster Love has just been long-listed for the Orange Prize.

From New Zealand we have the fine studied poetry of Jan FitzGerald; from Scotland the newly-discovered Henry Marsh freshly evokes images of the Scottish Isles. Enjoy work from America by the prize-winning poet Patrick Carrington and from the Middle East by Yahia Lababidi. Gail Denby’s work gives us a view of contemporary South Africa.

Along with Jeremy Worman's gritty tale of addiction in the 1960s and the fabulous sexual aspirations of a 10 year old in modern Khajuraho, in The Feast, by Indian writer, Sonya Singh, Dream Catcher 21 also presents Joy Armstrong's depictions of the dangers of stealing too much in the Cuban hotel trade and a wife's revenge in Joanne Brandon's Peaches.

The issue contains a great long poem by the prize-winning UK poet, Sue Wood, who recreates the drama surrounding the excavation of the Anglo- Saxon ship burial in the 1930s at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, by the eccentric landowner Mrs Pretty.

Dream Catcher is democratic and ambitious, a great read, half poetry, half fiction. Issue 21 is rounded off with a moving exploration of four famous contemporary Canadian poets by Chris Pannell. The fascinating images of artist illustrator Vanessa Stewart are featured in the journal; she supplies as well the front cover.
This issue is diverse, full of wonderful poems and stories, informed and engaging. Enjoy it.

To read extracts from Dream Catcher 21, just click here.
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