This chapbook shows Jackie Kay – as per usual – stirring up the political and personal in her poetry, although the Scottish landscape makes its indifferent presence felt throughout. The opening poem, The Imaginary Road, is a sort of broken ballad to the road of the imagination. The final Quintet is a paean to Ardtornish, a locality on the West of Scotland that overlooks the Isle of Mull. On the political front there is Extinction, a humorous and none-too-subtle riposte to Nigel Farage’s Little England mentality, and Would Jane Eyre Come To The Information Desk?, a surreal tale about identity and liberty. Kay shows a near perfect control of form while keeping her humour and political anger in a delicate balance. There are a couple of excellent sonnets but the most impressive poem returns to the Brontë family. Mr Bronte’s Fear Of Fire is about the wild visions of Patrick Brontë, the sad and disturbed brother of the literary sisters.
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