Poems: Dorothy Pope, Michael Croshaw, June Hall, Norbert Hirschhorn, John Miles, Martin Cook, Jennie Osborne, Elaine Feinstein, Roger Harvey, Leah Fritz, Michael Jennings, Peter Mortimer, Lynne Wycherley, Kenneth Durham Smith, Peggy Poole, Lotte Kramer, Ian Caws, Jenny Hamlett, Will Kemp, Jonathan Attrill, Julie Whitby, Greta Rana, Lance Lee, Rebecca Gethin, Jethro Dykes, Tim Cunningham, Fred Beake, Rod Mearing, Michael Bartholomew-Biggs, Caroline Carver, James Coghill, Mingjuan Tan, William Oxley, Rhona McAdam, Donna Pucciani, Howard Wright, Michael Newman, Myra Schneider, Patricia McCarthy.

Plus:

An interview with John Lucas
'Good and Evil in the Field of this World' – Patricia Oxley
'A Reputation at Stake' – David McVey
'Waiting for the Wine' – Peter Phillips

Reviews: Nigel Jarrett, Christopher J.P. Smith, William Oxley, Belinda Cooke, Michael Bartholomew-Biggs, Edmund Prestwich, Fred Beake.

A message from the editor:

"This issue starts of with five sonnets; all different and on different subjects, but all sonnets. They are followed by an acrostic (unusual form), many poems in free verse, in (often complex) rhyming stanzas, but no villanelles or sestinas this issue. Poets tell me that the poem defines the form. So I’d like to ask, not just for my benefit but for the readers of Acumen who are just beginning their poetic journeys, how does this happen? Surely you have to know the forms first, so do you do exercises in poetic form? By yourselves or at workshops? Do you pick them up from reading poetry in general? Do you ever set out, as the poet above did, to deliberately write in a known form? And is the sonnet becoming more popular? When I first started the magazine 25 years ago, I hardly received any sonnets, let alone any of the more complicated verse styles. So answers please, not just on postcards but letters for the Responses page. It’s always interesting for editors to know who their readers are; how they first came across the magazine, why they subscribe, or don’t subscribe, what they like and dislike about it. So the editor has put together a short on-line questionnaire for the magazine. If you can go on-line at home or at the library please take just a few minutes to answer it; it will help me with forward planning, and, hopefully, enable me to make the magazine even more enjoyable for its readers. https://www.negativeentropy.net SurveyTool code 345. Thank you."