Gifts the Mole Gave Me is an unearthing of life, a rediscovery of self after loss, and a search for the pleasurable, velvet touch of the mole's dark journey. It is a hymn to the wild places; to the sea, the sky and the mind, in which anxieties and griefs flit and hover.
The poems explore cycles of repetition, renewed attempts, vicious and virtuous circles - again and again, over and over, round and round. Things are tidal; 'the pull of the moon in your blood', the annual mark of a lost child's birthday, the cyclical nature of a 'madness' worn around the neck like a locket.
Mapping the veins and pathways of the body as surely as it does the dry stone walls and rural boundaries of the exterior, this is an accomplished and compelling collection which confirms its author's place at the heart of UK poetry.
