Fauverie

"No other British poet I am aware of can match the powerful mythic imagination of Pascale Petit." Les Murray, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year "Pascale Petit creates forms and strategies that go beyond common knowledge of what a poem can or should do; her poetry never behaves itself or betrays itself; and contemporary British poetry is all the livelier for it." David Morley, Magma "Our winner was chosen because of the un-reproducible bite of the images, her brilliant understanding of human psycho-drama, the sustained accomplishment of her metaphorical imagination." Adam O'Riordan, Chair of judges, Manchester Poetry Prize (for What The Water Gave Me, Poems after Frida Kahlo) Petit's collection, exploring the way trauma hurts an artist into creation, celebrates the rebarbative energy with which Kahlo redeemed pain and transformed it into paint. - Ruth Padel, The Guardian. (for poems from The Zoo Father) Petit carefully joins stories of such 'private wars' together with mythologies and histories of ancient cultures into a thick poetic weft. Her second collection, The Zoo Father (2001) catapults the reader into an imaginary and emotional jungle, where the relationship between a dying father and the daughter he has abused is fought out. Spun around the imagery of the Amazon and the ancient mythologies of indigenous peoples, these poems anchor 'private wars' in a historical domain, equally spanning the personal and universal. (Poetry International- Rotterdam)