Jo Reed’s second collection offers readers more of her trademark mix of memory, myth and magic; a window to a unique world where the unvarnished reality of OAP shopping trips (‘Finding the deepest trolleys, we fill our day’) sits alongside breath taking flights of imagination (‘a turtle sings, fathoms deep, a boy held safe upon her back.’)
The magic of Life Class is found in the single consciousness that connects the poems; be they set in the world of 1960s Soho, on the edge of an estuary, on a Greek island, or in the hearts and minds of Jo’s inimitable female protagonists (and the men they love - or more frequently, tolerate).