A review of Cheapside Afterlife by Josh Mcloughlin at New Critique:
George Rawlins’s Cheapside Afterlife: Poems (Longleaf Press, 2021) is a collection of 52 sonnets reimagining Chatterton’s life: the latest poetic tribute to Chatterton. Part epitaph, part elegy, part panegyric, Rawlins’s powerful and well-crafted sonnet sequence retells Chatterton’s story with the wit, lyricism and invention appropriate for an homage to English poetry’s most tragic figure. It begins by setting out its wares: ‘Cabinet of Wonders’ invokes an Enlightenment-themed ‘cover band’ and peddles its ‘objects of curiosity’ by asking impishly: ‘Why/not jitterbug the Age of Reason?’
To read the entire review: newcritique.co.uk