"Allison McVety’s follow up to 2007’s The Night Trotsky Came to Stay is a paean to the everyday, managing at once to capture the banality and magic of school days (‘Extra Curricula’), moving house (‘Two Mugs’), working life (‘Head Count’) and family (‘Offspring’). What is most striking about this collection is the efficiency of the language used – Occam’s razor has been applied effectively here, and the wonderfully stark images conjured up by such terse lines as 'we freeze, together and separated, verticals;' (from 'Family Trees') tell of a poet at the height of her powers."
Poetry Book Society
"Vivid and sensual."
Vicki Feaver
"Allison McVety seizes the reader’s attention. Partly it’s a narrative talent, but her particular skill is in converting the feel of the day-to-day – whether ordinary, intriguing or alarming – into genuine poetry."
Alan Brownjohn
"Here is a poet who excels at making longgone everyday objects like ration books at once endearing and remarkable. An exhilarating follow-up to her outstanding collection, The Night Trotsky Came to Stay. So clear is her voice that we can hear 'a pin drop from a milliner’s grip some ninety years/away'."
Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch
Allison McVety’s collection, The Night Trotsky Came to Stay (Smith/Doorstop, 2007), was shortlisted for the Forward Best First Collection Prize 2008, and won enthusiastic reviews. Her poems have appeared in the Times and PN Review and have been broadcast on Radio 3. Allison has an MA in Poetry and was shortlisted for the inaugural MMU Poetry Prize 2008.
This book is also available as an ebook: buy it from Smith|Doorstop here
or buy it from Amazon here.