Hannah and the Monk (Salt Modern Poets S.)

Reading Julia Bird's debut collection of poems is like sorting through the contents of an up-ended jewellery box. Here are delicately crafted formal love poems set with gleaming imagery, all mixed up with the rhinestone razzle of looser, noisier poems about urban myths, history, film and tv. The murkier side of life is not avoided, but these musical, consolatory poems are accessible, inquisitive and ultimately celebratory.