Man Walking on Water with Tie Askew

Margaret Wilmot writes like a true citizen of the world. She is as at home in the nine-part sequence: Quanta US: ?Wide-screen America?/ prelude to a Western, ? as in a sailor's hostel in Buenos Aires: (Your Holiness, Your Grace, Dear Sir, Dear Pope). She writes with a gleaming, persistent sense of wonder. Small, yet vital details are spotted, pondered and brought into the spotlight of her keen gaze, becoming poignant, whimsical and deeply significant in turn. Horse riding in Santa Catalina (Santa Catalina), she is halted by a migration of frogs: ?Each step will be a killing?, and who knew that the bullying magpie can recognise itself in mirrors? Just like humans! (The Thriving Magpie) This collection breathes with her dazzling use of language, and what I can only define as a sort of heightened energy underpinned by an indefinable sense of spirituality. It is a unique and welcome addition to a sometimes rather tired contemporary poetry scene.