Black Country - 9780701188573

The gorgeous, crystalline debut collection from rising star Liz Berry.
In Black Country, Liz Berry takes us home: to Wrens Nest, Gosty Hill, Bilston; to the summer where she first learned to talk; to the woods where the secrets are hidden. A parade of riotous characters abound: the Bone Orchard Wench, the Lady Rotcatcher, Carmella 'Ower Lady of the Hairdresser'.
But her poems also transport us into other, different worlds of the poet's imagination: the memories and magic of childhood to the dawning of adulthood and the dark, sweet mysteries of love and sexuality. Ablaze with energy and colour, and alive with a thrilling command of language, Liz Berry's poems are transformative, almost magical: her characters are protean, her eye unusual; all rooted in the sights and sounds of her native Black Country: 'vowels ferrous as nails, consonants you could lick the coal from.'
This is a distinctive, assured, and unforgettable debut full of fierce poems of wonder and incandescent joy. It marks the arrival of a luminous talent in British poetry.