Cain Named the Animal (Shortlisted, Forward Prize for Best Collection)

There are cracks running visibly through the poems in Cain Named the Animal. From reading reviews of American poet Shane McCrae’s earlier collections, National Book Award Finalist In the Language of My Captor and T S Eliot prize shortlisted Sometimes I Never Suffered,         cracks persist             throughout them too       as well as        no              punctuation           with space instead                  serving as a kind of                 punc-                           tuation     coupled with    stumbling repetitions               stumbling and the odd / line break             depicted odd          as you would write it in an essay or review.                    it is      an arresting device        and one that             initially to me, initially was       a         distraction                    seeming to get i              n the way    of me               hearing the poems                               in my head.

MIDWINTER (LONGLISTED, 2017 BAILEYS WOMEN’S PRIZE)

I might not have read this novel were it not longlisted for the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize. The hardcover with its stylised Edward Bawden-like black and red linocut of a rural scene – red sun, red fox, and red blurb byline counterbalanced by the bold black lines of plant life – seemed, well, just a Read More