Sarah releases Other Beasts
Phd in poetry scholar Sarah Corbett's third book, Other Beasts, has just been published by Seren Press.
The collection is Sarah's first book in six years and follows The Witch Bag (2002) and The Red Wardrobe (1998), which was shortlisted for Forward and TS Eliot prizes.
"The book was a long time coming into being," Sarah says, "I actually wrote three books before I felt I'd got it right.
"This was partly because I wanted to step away from more intimate material, and partly because the world was changing and I wanted to try and include that.
"Still, the book circles around the recurring themes in my work - childhood, family, relationships - then widens that circle to consider external events, so there's a certain dangerous energy that underpins all the poems. This shares a common source - the loss of my mother in early childhood, with the poem 'Mother and The Bomb' probably coming closest to bringing those two things together.
"The beasts of the title are present in many guises, and reflect to some extent my own sense of affinity with animal life.
"They also always represent something else though - and there are other kinds of beasts, of course, besides the four-legged kind."
Other Beasts can be ordered online from www.seren-books.com, or ask you local bookseller to order copies.