October

I do so love getting the next month’s worth of poetry, gloating over its shiny covers and promise of new discoveries. This month’s batch includes two collections (Gross and Henderson) liberated from a box of books at my parents’ house (belonging to me), so would count in the original shelf of poetry that I aimed to read this year. The other three were lovingly selected at a shop rather than online (which is what I normally do); one was a recommendation from Tom ‘This is Yogic’ (the Hadfield). I can’t wait.

Sophie Hannah, Pessimism for Beginners (Carcanet, 2007)
Philip Gross, Cat’s Whisker (Faber and Faber, 1987)
Jen Hadfield, Nigh-no-place (Bloodaxe, 2008)
Stewart Henderson, A Giant’s Scrapbook (Spire/Hodder & Stoughton, 1989)
Gwyneth Lewis, Parables and Faxes (1995, from Chaotic Angels: Poems in English, Bloodaxe, 2005)