David Gilbey

There are some pretty ambiguous rats in this collection and most of them are male but ultimately, it’s the writer’s own unease that cumulatively gnaws away at happiness and achievement. Take the scene in ‘Soldier of the Round Valleys’ at Grandma’s eighty-something birthday where she ‘cuts the cake and makes a wish’: But as she cuts the cake, leaning over the table and pressing ha ... (read more)

Dorothy Porter’s verse novels are delicious and distancing, formal, fiery and frenetic. With the possible exception of What a Piece of Work (1999), they get better and better. Early on, El Dorado smacks you in the face and strokes your imagination with a ‘little girl’s / dead hand / … sticking stiffly / up / as if reaching / to grab an angel’s / foot’. Framed by epigraphs from Gilgames ... (read more)