Claire Askew – This Changes Things
Rarely have I felt so compelled to read a poetry collection from cover to cover in just two days. The coupling of Claire’s imagery to her confessional writing held me utterly captive.
Robin Robertson – The Wrecking Light
Robertson is a poetry master; the clarity and fluidity of his lines making everything he writes feel as though it emerged perfectly formed. This collection finds him at his very best: poems that’ll either inspire you to write, or make you feel like giving up.
Helen Farish – Intimates
Helen’s deceptively laid-back style makes you think she was able to pen many of the poems in this fine collection without so much as a single edit. This belies the depth of her craft – here are poems that go beyond what may be apparent on first reading.
Sharon Olds – Stag’s Leap
A truly remarkable distillation of a marriage past that deserves every bit of praise it earned. What Olds makes you understand from first poem to last is how it feels to let go of a life that was once everything.
Warsan Shire – Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
Prepare yourself to be confronted by (and connected to) some of the realities of life in Somalia as relayed – eloquently, beautifully and painfully – in this triumph of a pamphlet. Warsan Shire must surely be crowned the UK’s poet laureate someday.
Mark Antony Owen is the author of digital poetry project ‘Subruria’ – see http://www.subruria.com. He’s a syllabic poet based in the UK, and writes exclusively in nine, self-developed poetic forms (sometimes, with variations). You can follow Mark on Twitter at @MarkAntonyOwen.