Reversal

Kate Rhodes's powerful first collection is part autobiography, part travelogue. In a series of moving poems she reverses at full speed into the past, searching for the father she never really got to know, and revisiting the childhood house she was often afraid to return to. Her travel poems consider the long, reflective car journeys she has taken across America, pausing to contemplate emotional landmarks. Don Paterson has described her style as ‘pared to the bone, elegant and precise.’ Her collection moves confidently across an eclectic range of subjects from a portrait of Alfred Wallis to a one-to-one dialogue with Damien Hirst's shark, but all of her poems are characterised by their warmth, accessibility, and wit.