Elsa and the Wolfman

Powerful and moving poems about the relationship between father and daughter

Elsa and the Wolfman is a powerful, lyrical duet between father and newborn daughter, written in two contrasting voices. The father, poet and caregiver, uses classical forms to wrestle with anxieties of raising a child and growing older, while Elsa’s lines – willful, instinctive, curious – dart across the page countering and shaping him.

Intimate, moving, funny, and sensitive to harm, the collection explores their bond as they navigate a world beset by pandemics, feathered dinosaurs, kidney stones, cruelty in the borderlands, and stark fairy-tale nightmares. From waking in a smoky house to the Wolfman letting a bat out of a window, it is a book of love, learning, and the profound, playful bond between father and daughter.