Ox

Martin Hayes has managed with Ox to create a new allegory that says a lot about our work lives that stays true to the tradition of poets and writers who under totalitarian regimes have had to create allegories to escape detection by control-freak authorities. It requires real ingenuity and perseverance to create a new vehicle for your voice and still be able to stay incisive and funny.




- Fred Voss




"1984 for 2021: the fabulous Ox's allegorical self-song sings to us of our own diminution; our sad expediency; our compromise and cowardice; of how we've allowed ourselves to become bystanders to our own enslavement. Martin Hayes gives us back the truest measure of England's new identity. We should take note and be grateful."




- Martin Malone




'We need poets like Hayes now more than ever ... Important reading.'




- Andrew McMillan, Poetry Review




'Hayes is unique among British poets ... thoroughly subversive ... funny, shocking, fascinating, humanising.'




- Mistress Quickly's Bed




'This is poetry like virtually no-one else in Britain is writing. It is funny, wise, sad, tragic and thoroughly memorable.'




- Alan Dent