Deformations

Shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Poetry Prize 2021

Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2020

An Observer Book of the Year 2020

Deformations includes two large-scale works related in their preoccupation with biographical and mythical narrative. #&39;Welfare Handbook#&39; explores the life and art of Eric Gill, the well-known English letter cutter, sculptor and cultural figure, who is known to have sexually abused his daughters. The poem draws on material from Gill#&39;s letters, diaries, notes and essays as part of a lyrical exploration of the conjunction between aesthetics, subjectivity and violence. #&39;Pitysad#&39; is a series of simultaneously occurring fragments composed around themes and characters from Homer#&39;s Odyssey. It considers how trauma is disguised and deformed through myth and art. Acting as a bridge between these two works is a series of individual poems on the creation and destruction of cultural and mythical conventions.