Murder the Darkness w/ laughter & stories 24 pgs. $8, numbered edition of 50 Verve Bath Press www.wordsdance.com Review by William Taylor Jr. UK poet Miles J. Bell’s new chapbook is titled "Murder The Darkness W/Laughter & Stories".  Many of the poems in the collection attempt to do just that, and they tend to do their job very well.  In the tradition of Wordsworth, Bell use uses everyday language to speak to his readers about the world around them.  The poems encourage one to look at the ordinary in a new light. Bell paints his canvass using the colors of the mundane and everyday moments of life. Like any skilled poet worth his salt, Miles shows that poetry can be found in the  most ordinary of moments, as in his poem "Always The Walls": the anonymous intimacy/ of lighting a stranger’s cigarette/  in the bus queue/ as rain-swept night waits in the wings. In this poem a simple exchange between two strangers is elevated to something more.  Bell’s poems tend to turn over the smallest stones of experience and find new possibilities underneath. His poems uncover a darkness as well as a simple beauty in everyday life. In "Cadaver Dogs" he paints a sinister portrait of people being mugged as they stumble toward their factory jobs in the early morning:  I always thought/ such attacks happened/in the dark in alleyways/ I avoid both of these/ but I have to go to work// better ride faster.  The poem effectively creates an air of urban paranoia.   At his very best Bell boils hope and despair together in a handful of powerful lines.  The poem "There is  a Fragile Beauty Even In This Neighborhood" reads, in its entirety:  Somebody’s car/ leaked oil/ which has been painted/ across the street/ by the blocked drain/ bubbling piss /creating rainbows / without rain/ bows/ or any hope/ of finding/ gold.   In Bell’s work one senses the influence of some of the better American Outlaw poets, such as Charles Bukowski and Todd Moore.   As in the poems of Bukowski, the characters in Mr. Bell’s poems struggle through everyday life finding joy and despair, and in their struggle I believe many  a reader will see their own.  Again, the poems in this chapbook do well to show that Wordsworth’s idea that poetry should be ordinary people writing about ordinary lives, is alive and well here in the 21st century, and I, for one, am thankful. This handsome chapbook was created apparently with much love and talent by Verve Bath Press, headed by Amanda Oaks, editor of   the fine Words Dance poetry zine.  As the first edition is limited to 50 copies, I suggest you get your hands on one while you can.