On Trust

* A collection of poems organised around the idea of telling (and not telling) the truth. * Plays with the idea of the `I' of a poem - in these poems the speakers are not always who they appear to be. * Humorous and accessible, the collection touches on themes of being and belonging, death and fate. * Adopts and uses a large number of formal devices; the sonnet, Burns's stanza, sestina, free verse. * Features the Marquis de Sade, the seasons, mythology and fantasy, sex, history and Eastern Europe.

A book of lying monologues playing with the idea that confession is necessarily truthful.Shortlisted for the 2019 Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize for Second Collections. Longlisted for the 2018 International Dylan Thomas Prize. On Trust: A Book of Lies, James Womack's second collection of poems, is organised around the notion of telling the truth. Working against ideas of poetry as a vehicle for displaying individual truths or unprocessed confessions, these poems play hilariously, earnestly, undecidedly, with such simple identifications as the `I' of a poem with the `I' of the poet, offering us monologues which seem to be sincere, unvarnished accounts of things that have `really' happened, but which twist and escape any absolute statements of identity. Serious questions of being and belonging, as well as frivolous themes such as the Marquis de Sade, Siberia, genitals, the Fates, and death, are picked up in play, prodded at, then put down in new and sparkling configurations.