Description
Book SynopsisIn all of Robin Thomas’s work there is a subtlety and wit so contained that it invites re-reading. It takes full immersion to savour the linguistic dexterity and intelligence at work, to appreciate that humour often belies the absolute seriousness of life. In reminded of something, this balance is particularly delicate and the poignancy superbly controlled and utterly affecting. With a yearning that can only come of love and loss, the poems use the simplest of metaphors in the most lucid language to convey memories and emotions so complex and heart-breaking that they are almost beyond the scope of words—a collection that is profoundly moving and exquisitely realised.
Trade ReviewPoems are like rooms. One might feel safe in such a room and, at first sight, the poems of Robin Thomas employ an architecture which is reassuring. […] Yet walls shake and windows crack and the ‘homely’ formal qualities of these well-made poems belie a mystery, a strangeness, a reckoning. — Julian Stannard;Robin Thomas’s is a fragile world, whose unexpected strengths derive from his elastic, unsentimental grasp of reality. It’s not surprising that I find myself smiling with recognition as I read Robin Thomas’ view of the universe … after all, ambiguity and contradiction are embedded in comedy of the most serious kind. — Janice Dempsey;Occasionally I seize upon a single poem sent to me, or discovered by accident, and rejoice in its particular oddness or specialness or combination of the two. Robin Thomas's poetry evokes this response with its extraordinary quirkiness, quaint combination of wild and everyday wisdom, the way the clues are always in the margins, chuckling as they wait to be found or found out. Thomas is the master of irony and juxtaposition, never obvious, always surprising. — Wendy Klein
