From cosmology to infidelity, gentle truth to the fiercest of fairytales, this first collection from Kona Macphee tells an outsider's story in a voice that sings with the music of language.
As a coin tossed or untossed, a snowball, a course of IVF, the thread of fate weaves itself throughout the poems in Tails. Can we learn to change our destiny by releasing the hurts of the past, while still embracing our fragility and ultimate mortality?
Exuberantly lyrical, occasionally bleak yet never bitter, these poems explore the ambivalence of hope in the face of loss, and the redemption to be found in celebrating the transitory.
'Kona Macphee’s poetry has a genuine lyricism and mystery, together with a bold experimental diction’ – John Greening, Poetry Review.
'Kona Macphee’s finest work presents a perspective whose detachment is rooted in genuine care for what it sees, as though the refusal to centre the poems in personal subjectivity will provide the most intimate connection to the world. Add to this meticulous attention a lyricism based on compressed syntax and skilful consonance…an impressive range’ – Carrie Etter, Poetry Review.
'Poems of elegant gravitas, terse yet lyrical' – Independent on Sunday.
