Maggie Ball’s review of Like to the Lark

Really lovely to wake, yesterday, to Maggie Ball’s generous, moving, eloquent review of Like to the Lark. (Maggie’s latest collection Bobish is out now with Puncher & Wattmann.)

Here’s a excerpt:

‘Like to the Lark is a fantastic primer for anyone looking to learn more about poetic forms such as sonnets, sestinas, tritinas, duplexes, pantoums, ghazals, prose poems and villanelles. However, the forms never feel constrained or overt. They feel integral, fresh and natural to the work. In many ways the book charts a coming of age: growing up gay in a small Tasmanian town, memories of the past, rape, drug use, love and loss mingling with climate anxiety, recovery and emotional growth. There is such exuberance in these poems—delight in language and what it’s capable of, and subversive trickery that is somehow both charmingly naughty and reverent at the same time. Like to the Lark is a rich and pleasurable book, each poem revealing its many layers on re-reading.’

Thanks to Maggie and to Compulsive Reader, where the review appeared. .

You can order Like to the Lark here.