The May Figures

Chris Preddle seems to have gone a little under the radar: he is a poet to learn from and to enjoy, who hasn't always been enjoyed widely enough...his poems are always gloriously unfettered by fashion, for one thing. But, as The May Figures so amply demonstrates, they are also imaginatively and linguistically sprightly, and varied: he is as tricksy and alluring in tiny imagistic poems as he is in longer, fractured, inquisitive ones, equally keen to engage your heart and your head. - Rory Waterman, Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent Univeristy, and author of Wendy Cope; Sweet Nothings; Tonight The Summer's Over and Sarajevo Roses; These poems are lyrical, diverse in form, persistently ingenious in their half-rhymes, alliterative, witty, punning with impunity. They are full of extraordinary tense-nuances and syntaxes, and completely outwith our period's identitarian obsessions. I found myself imagining a relaxed Geoffrey Hill, with Eliotan tones. - Chris Agee, founder and editor of Irish Pages and author of Trump Rant; Next To Nothing and New Worth; Preddle's language is precision-tuned. Layered with the cadences, rhythms and ceremonies of history and all our poetic pasts, it cuts, at the same time, directly to our contemporary hearts. - Damian Walford Davies, editor of Scintilla, Pro Vice-Chancellor for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cardiff University; author of Whiteout, Suit of Lights and Witch