A Swan’s Neck on the Butcher’s Block

Our summary description

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In this new collection, Jenni Fagan writes in conversation with poets of the past, using their presence as a way into darker inner territory. Through them she communes with demons and looks out at a world that seems continually at odds with itself.

The poems travel on the outskirts, attentive to the nuances of class, care, misogyny and brutality. The voice holds close to what is difficult and sharp edged, yet it also makes room for love, humour, hope and defiance, not as resolution but as something lived alongside what harms.

Across the collection, the poet’s life is placed under the microscope, with the sense of an eye that will not look away. The work is described as visceral and challenging, and full of raw passion, shaped by someone who has traversed arduous roads with pen in hand.