Kate Llewellyn’s poetry is immediately accessible and clear, but not simplistic. She is completely at ease, unlike most writers, with reading her work aloud; this may be a function of an eminently readable style of writing, or the reverse, where the style follows .the demands of reading aloud. Either way, it works.

Llewellyn is very good when retelling, in fact rewriting, mythological and folkloric tales. This is not new. Such poems can be tedious when simply argumentative, but Llewellyn’s versions of ‘Cinderella’, ‘Helen’, ‘Eve’, and others appear to have a personal edge and are written in a relaxed conversational way that makes for easy but interesting reading.