Milk Snake Iain Crichton Smith

Milk Snake Iain Crichton SmithIn Milk Snake, Toby Buckley invites us to look at the world from a slightly different angle, where small things become unsettling if you look closely enough. The poet explores queerness, displacement and trauma through clear voiced, deceptively gentle poems about fishermen, maggots and bees. bleary from sleep and warm water and no glasses i spot an uncertain comma sliding he drags his tail up my shower wall cumbersome and not unmaggotesque and i can

Who would wish to escape

‘On a first reading Handling is a convincing and likeable book

Maryam yearns for travel and the opportunity to continue her education in a European university

the constant fear of Nazi terror and concentration camps are all harrowingly present

a lively introduction to thirty of Birmingham’s most awe-inspiring women

and vulnerable because the directness of her language can be dismissed as banal

other speech patterns

and inner turmoil as your mind and body seek the solace and comfort of belonging to enable you to turn and face the world

Samuel (Sam) Selvon was born in San Fernando in 1923

and giving intimate insights into all that happened to the region after that

Claire Crowther on Steffan Jones and Naomi Foyle

Blaise Cendrars