Jen Dunn’s first collection of poems is a stark and, in places, raw read. Terse yet vivid lines examine a range of experiences in the life of a medical professional. The colours and sounds of an orthopaedic surgeon’s daily interventions are contrasted with the mournful internal dialogue of psychoanalysis. This collection marks the emergence of a new voice with rich experience of trauma in its variant forms, and an impressive range of poetic instruments with which to investigate those experiences.
(Andy Jackson, poet)
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Like nesting dolls indeed, these are poems of tender love and longing which open out to encompass a century or more of family history. They are poems of emigration and alienation, of love and loss, brought alive by the detail in Kathryn Metcalfe’s writing. I particularly liked the longing evoked in ‘Back Court’ where the patch of blue sky grows smaller every day, even ‘weeds would be welcome here’ and the young woman’s sigh is a small brown bird reaching for freedom. In Seanchaidh/Storyteller, the title character comes to life as ‘Ancient campfires burned / in his eyes as he worked / the fabric of hand me down / stories’.
The poems come to us as snapshots, scattered and seemingly random, in much the same way that family history is remembered and shared.
(Jennie Turnbull, Writer)
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Dr Linda Jackson set up a Writing Retreat in Barga, Tuscany and the poetic outcomes have now been placed in this small book.
Barga: the town, the families and the artistic community.
It is all in here.
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Linda Jackson’s ‘The Siren Awakes’ is a haunting, heartbreaking and often hilarious dissection of the author’s own childhood and early adulthood; a real world of monster masks, dark closes, dazzling sunlight, love, fear, and, particularly, music. Gentle innocence and sudden cruel violence exist side by side. (Graham Fulton, Poet)
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There can be no doubt that Karen Macfarlane is a special talent. In All About the Surface, her closely observed, resonant poems convey the richness of the moments she explores. Whether it is open water swimming, walking a ridge, or running down the hill at Clachtoll, Macfarlane’s impressive command of her craft transports the reader into her world to live those experiences with her, to share their pleasures, to encounter their challenges and to be the wiser for having done so.
(Nigel Kent, poet and reviewer)
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