“There’s a strong sense of Poet as Ringmaster in John Mills’ collection.
He seems to stand at the centre, calling up scenes, events, characters and displays from a rich stock of people, stories and memories.
And he exercises real control in these tight, well-worked poems, giving his material just the right space and freedom to become real for us, to affect us and to give us privileged access to all the variety of his experience.
The voice is often clean and unfussy, sometimes darkly witty, and on occasion pitched in a strange space between anger and softness, but throughout there are the flourishes of lovely phrase-making, which ring out like the crack of a whip, or a bravura striking of a pose, hat aloft and smiling.
Read it. It’s mesmerising stuff.”
James Sheard
Also endorsed by Helen Mort
You can buy an advance copy and read more about John Mills’ poetry pamphlet here
We will be announcing a zoom launch event soon 🙂
Nadia x
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