A Straight Up Giant by Mark Waldron #nikitagill For Artifice is as much

For Artifice is as much riddle as revelation

‘Bloodaxe has just announced the exciting second collection from Dr Claire Askew

Shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize 2021

and is unafraid to confront violence and cruelty

'Imtiaz Dharker's new collection is the crown to a celebratory

A Straight Up Giant by Mark Waldron #nikitagill For Artifice is as muchSerious, comic, brave, cowardly, engaged, disengaged, urgent, unurgent, chattering chiffchaff, talking horses, unpretentious, pretentious, all of God's creatures are here. There's also an almost but not quite dialogue between the poems and the laconic (and sometimes furious) musings of the passages which punctuate them. There are a series of fairytale poems, and others which give unfettered voice to Marcie, a character who has appeared in Mark