Kit Fan: As Slow As Possible (Arc Publications, £9.99)
Phoebe Power: Shrines of Upper Austria (Carcanet Press, £9.99)
Penny Boxall: Who Goes There? (Valley Press, £8.99)
Many of the poetry books we sell are anthologies. Like a poetry selection box, these can be a great way to get a taster of different poets. In some ways though, it is actually more rewarding to be taken on a journey by one poet, one single mind. Three awesome young York poets have been taking us on this journey with their recent poetry releases, while reaching a larger audience and receiving wide acclaim in the process.
Phoebe Power has just won The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection in the Forward poetry prize and is shortlisted for the TS Eliot Award. She has been described as “wry and knowing”, her poems are both personal and aware of the wider political climate of our day. Her latest is a collage of voices, poems and prose, with German glossary!
Penny Boxall has had a stellar career so far, already winning the biennial Edwin Morgan Poetry Award for Scottish poets aged 30 or under in 2016. One review described her work as follows: “Like a good museum curator, Boxall holds each object up to the light and shows us its relevance with clarity and humour.” Her second collection Who Goes There: 29 poems by Penny Boxall is just out and includes possibly the only moth-eaten poem I can remember reading.
Kit Fan recently got picked out in a Guardian round-up of poetry books to watch out for this autumn and was a finalist in the Guardian and Fourth Estate BAME short story prize 2018. His new collection As Slow As Possible (named after a John Cage composition) is an ambitious and diverse work, taking in everything from Chinese myths to Northern Rock with an often intense and dream-like quality.
I recommend the work of all three of these talented individuals for that poetry disciple in your family.
Review by Tim Curtis, Little Apple bookshop
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here