Landscape and memory are central to Adrian Blamires’ second collection of poems, revisiting places of shared pleasure and pain. Whether the subject is love, war or poetry itself, the pangs of conscience and desire are felt throughout. Blamires draws upon a range of forms and traditions, from sonnet to narrative ballad, from pastoral to satirical. The versatility is striking, but what unifies the collection is a sense of measured intensity, an unfailing wit, verve and musicality.

Blamires is specifically electric in the act of observation - he can manage internal and external observation with a precision that is as surprising as it is revealing and unsettling… He also serves out intricate patterns and motifs that work across the length and breadth of each collection; there are lattices of thought, feeling and language which are wholly created rather than merely selected and presented… he shapes an entire poem as a 'singing mesh' yet also creates a massive yet delicate architecture out of the book itself - the book as a poetic form in fact. I very much recommend the poetry of Adrian Blamires.
David Morley

This is Adrian Blamires’s second poetry collection and it seems he can turn his hand to any poetic form or tradition, with a wide range on display here. There is an eclectic mix of old and new, both in terms of form and content, but what really stands out in this collection is the poet’s acute attention to detail as symbolic landscapes and settings are brought to life with language both lyrical and dense.
Poetry Book Society

Extracts from

The Pang Valley

Achilles

Appliqué

Herding the Yahoos