Of Mutability, by Jo Shapcott (hardcover)

Jo Shapcott's award-winning first three collections, gathered in Her Book: Poems 1988-1998, revealed her to be a writer of ingenuous, politically acute and provocative poetry, and rightly earned her a reputation as one of the most original and daring voices of her generation. In Of Mutability, Jo Shapcott is found writing at her most memorable and bold. In a series of fresh, unflinching poems, the author movingly explores mortality and the nature of change: in the body and the natural world, and in the shifting relationships between people. By turns grave and playful, arresting and witty, the poems in Of Mutability celebrate each waking moment as though it might be the last, and in so doing restore wonder to the smallest of encounters.

'Shapcott is gifted and original, and it is in work such as hers that the future health of poetry needs to be sought.' Sean O'Brien, Sunday Times

'There is about Shapcott's poetry a passionate reticence. Once in disguise, though, pressed into other skins and other perspectives, she howls and sings.' Michael Hofmann, The Times

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