This week among other things, I’ve been reading Issue 4 of Mistress Quickly’s Bed. There’s an overarching theme of religion that I picked up on in the issue, first of all in the editorial where the publishers, Alan Dent and Nancy Frost, conversed about how they think that religion is just a phase, rather like E.L. James (lol!). Of course, as much as I’d like to agree with them (after all, what has caused more war and death in the world) as a former archaeologist, unfortunately I can’t deny that religion has come hand and hand with the dawn of civilisation and temples have controlled the nature of society since the days of city-states like Eridu, 6000-odd years ago. Society and religion (sigh!). My favourite poems in this issue were by poet Rob Brady…I felt much the same way he did as a child in his poem ‘Theology’ on page 20, although my favourite poem of his has to be ‘Democracy’ on page 18. Yes, people pay taxes and yes, soldiers fight wars that they often don’t know why they’re fighting, but what about the title, democracy? I can think of another word beginning with D that I reckon sums up society to a T!
Mistress Quickly’s Bed, along with Inclement, Decanto and Sarasvati are among my current favourite print poetry journals. I especially love the bite that the editor of Mistress Quickly’s Bed, Alan Dent, has. The last page of the summer volume finishes with a fantastic invitation for writers standing in the face of publishing despair to learn in a seminar from Franz Kafka about what exactly is on the line when you put your sanity versus every publisher in Europe. Love it!
About this blog
Leilanie Stewart 
Hello Leilanie
I like your angle on things. You have insight and that is rare. Good stuff !!
Here’s a poem I wrote…
Hi Martin, thanks for sharing your poem. You might like to submit your work to The Recusant, a magazine that likes social and political poetry: http://www.therecusant.org.uk/guidelines/4524571971 – best of luck 🙂