Veer is a young and promising publication that has not yet reached its potential. The theme of their second issue, released at a complete reading of its contents at Magdalene College, is ‘Flora and Fauna’, and the publication is disguised as the collected naturalist observations of an anonymous author, containing colour plates of butterflies and flowers from ‘antiquated’ books.

Paul Butcher’s poem ‘Cranberry Blue’ celebrates just such anonymity, describing how more earthen coloured butterflies survive by flitting under the radar, whereas showier species attract attention and are caught and preserved. Because Veer modelled itself on the familiar diaries of bourgeois-turned-provincial visionaries, I expected an amalgamation of agrarian and environmentally attuned works. Instead, the major theme of the texts was an unexpected tension between stillness and movement, growth and decomposition.

However, Veer is not suited to the kind of reading which it gave. The reading transformed the continuity of the naturalist journal - private, voyeuristic and antedated – back into the individual poems, re-personalizing the anonymity. The magazine flourishes under the imagination that such various poems could emerge from one person’s head, but each poet gave a personal background at the reading, justifying instead of allowing it to remain detached as part of the greater project.

But the publication plays well to Luke McMullan’s and Sophie Seita’s concept of poetry as work in progress. The theme is a good move by Veer, loosely uniting the various poems, but more importantly grounding the poems in reality while also engendering experimentation, if not in content then in form. Jamie Patton’s incredible ‘Five Studies’ is almost a parable, and many of the poems are studies: Amber Medland’s is an experiment with a Japanese form, Luke McMullan’s ‘Atomsong’ rearranges Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’, Orla Polten’s is a free translation of Sappho and Rob Leadbetter’s ‘On the Google Art project, 2011’ plays with the idea of reproduction and the mass production of artwork.

I worry that this magazine suffers from a lack of press and submissions, but its potential puts it in the running with better known publications such as The Dial and The Tower. The humility and unpretentiousness of the latest Veer is much appreciated. It does not claim to be perfect, but is a refreshing change from the more polished Cambridge journals, a camouflaged butterfly in itself.

 

Visit Veer's website here.