Every Inadequate Name: Poems

In this, his highly anticipated debut collection of poems, Nick Thran fuses a whimsical pop sensibility with an urgent poetic gravitas that refuses to sell the human heart short. The resultant poems are emblematic of the clash between our private enthusiasms and the cool diffidence of the world around us. Here, a private school student stashes a stolen sheep's brain inside the bookcase of a girl he thinks is beautiful; a mother bakes banana bread with sugar borrowed from a neighbour who beats his wife. With equal parts playfulness and tenacity, Nick Thran writes refreshingly substantial poems about the risks we take in our struggle to remain passionate about something (anything) in an age when an ingrained cynicism attempts to keep genuine passion at arm's length.