"Basic Nest Architecture" by Polly Atkin (Seren, 2017)

Poems from Magma, from her prizewinning MsLexia pamphlet, etc. 3 1st prize winners, 2 2nd prize winners, 3 3rd prizewinners and many shortlisted poems.

Dreams, encounters with animals (animals as "other"), the idea that things might seem to be (or be interpreted) in several ways. The 10-line title poem is the shortest. Many of the others are at least twice that length. Many quotable lines. Here are a few -

• "a token of a broken wing, the barbs stripped bare to the point it pierces ... It is writing in you" ("Cannulation")
• "Someone is already reconstructing me slice by slice ... Nothing makes sense without contrast" ("Imaging" - MRI scan?)
• "numberless stars all shrieking at once ... a bee-dance of matter we cannot interpret. We have fallen too far from flight" ("Free Night")
• "No one needs another poem about the heart as a bird flap flap in a cage of cartilage and bone ... No one writes of the beak or the talons. No one writes of what it feeds from ... No one writes of the noise at night" ("With Feathers")

Other reviews

• The poetry book society (The book is divided into three sections: the first contains poems quite directly inspired by the author’s move from London to the Lakes. ... Most of section two moves back in time and uncovers earlier locations and subjects. ... The final section contains more painful work, literally and figuratively. These poems are hints from the autobiography of the poet who suffered for many years from a mysterious and debilitating illness.)