Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries What’s it like to be Irene Hedges? Or Linda Jones or Dawn Cooper, or any of the others who are not like you; who are normal? Do they know how lucky they are? You have no idea which piece is missing from your clockwork, what has made you […]
Issue 27
2 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries I Think That’s What Love Is I find you in the small canteen. The noise around an elegant TV mast. Oh god, the sadness. A series of paving slabs implanted into a field like a proto-spine or a history of unstructured gangrene. I eat my wet sandwich […]
2 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Control The Pontotoc manwho confessedto killing his best friendduring a fishing tripbecause he believed this personwas summoning BigFoot to harm him,has been convicted. The man recounted seeinga twelve foot BigFoot crouchedand hearing his friend howlthrough a drainage pipe. He claimed his best friend also insistedon catching a […]
Shaped
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries i. The Bra You were nine the first time your shape displeased you. The bra had been a present on Christmas. Absurd. You’d wanted a doll. The bra was white and smelled like a grandmother’s house. You were less than enthused when your mum showed you how to […]
2 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Your Cathedral I remember the first time you brought me here:your roofless cathedral you called it, showed me the way samphire gets washed in gold whenthe sun falls over the mudflats of Morecambe Bay, Lakeland mountains bruised violet by the sky they touch,charcoal smudges across the water, huddled […]
Spilt Milk
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Charlie had noticed her at once on walking into the hotel’s breakfast room that morning. She stood by the generous bow window that faced out to sea, in an attitude of restful contemplation that he found charming. And somehow the next moment there he was, standing by her […]
3 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries North Star(a e h i l n o r s t anagram) Terns strain as east sleet threatens,it thrashes these northern shoreson seasonal rotation. Stern, here.As the sea lathers, the inlet silts,its islet less isle, its saline isolationstolen as the straits start to thin. See those tell-tales? […]
Our Life Together
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries I don’t know when it started. I, for one, have never been that interested but it’s happened that gradually, over the years, as our life together has become ever more uneventful so our desire to discuss politics has increased. You could argue that it’s not surprising given the […]
3 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Happy Fat Brown Puppy After Utagawa Hiroshige’s woodblock print:Ushimachi in the Takanawa District About this view by Utagawa H – who else would set an oxcart wheeleye-level, and so in your facethe uncrossable distance of artseems semi-zero?Or persuade a fading rainbow’s curveto follow the rim of the wheelon […]
Great Potential (trans. Beth Fowler)
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Sometimes, Amelia hides behind the railings and stands there watching her classmates swarm out and launch themselves at the mothers waiting for them at home time with sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil, donuts for the lucky ones, and maybe even a Bollycao for the chosen few. Amelia likes to […]
My Dog Ate the Sun
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries And tumbled through the door when Ilet him in. His rust coat moved like awindy sea. I turned on the porch light: itdidn’t make any difference. “You’re dead,”I said to him; he cocked his head to theleash on a chair. Of course, he wouldwant to go walking now, […]
Rue Garenne (trans. Ruth Ward)
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries There’s this woman as eccentric as Christ walking on water. She writes poems on her painted toes, which will never touch the ground because she slips them into platforms high as half her head, or higher. Grey pigeon feathers decorate her hair along with leaves of fresh mint and laurel. And each […]
Signs
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries It began the way of all rumours. Coming from nowhere, permeating the air like smoke then gaining form and substance from repetition until it became truth, or at least Fact. Someone had said it in the marketplace, or a prophet had come down from the hills. Then there […]
3 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Telephonophobia I sprint three stairsat a time, dying to hearwho’s on the line.I lift the receiver to my trainedear, my lips purse tiny airholes.He said he was a doctorabout to visit our schoolneeded to conduct the firstexamination. Are you alone?I’m alone, I say, thinking of the lollipops […]
Issue 27: Editorial
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries It’s been a year since the current editorial team took responsibility for The Manchester Review, and we are delighted to present Issue 27. This issue blends some familiar names with plenty of new faces, and as is tradition for the Review is comprised of different styles across fiction […]