At the heart of many of these poems lies an apprehension of things being lost or destroyed, and with this a need for consolation. The question of how we look for, or create, such solace - whether in faith or the rain, by doing a puzzle or watching TV - is one that threads through the book. In this work - her second collection - there is an increasing scope and depth to language as Stoddart seeks to explore paradoxes: poems of motherhood are double-edged celebrations, grief must come to some good.
The ambivalence at work in her first book comes to intriguing fruition here in a collection of original and distinctive poems.
Born in 1966, Greta Stoddart grew up in Oxford and studied in Paris and London. Her first book, At Home in the Dark, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 2002. She lives in Devon and works as a poetry tutor for, among others, The Poetry School and Bath Spa University.
