Drawing on Romany language, storytelling and the speech of birds, award-winning poet David Morley offers a provocative and passionate invitation to reflect afresh on the ways in which the lives, stories and fate of humans – and the more than human – are twinned and entwined.

In poems that crackle with verbal energy, he invokes a world where God is Salieri to Nature’s Mozart, in which hummingbirds hover like actors ‘in a theatre of flowers’, pipistrelles become piccolos, swans swerve comets, and a Zyzzyx wasp is ‘a zugzwang of six legs and letters’. There are exuberant celebrations of Romany language in the style of Edward Thomas; of how a Yellowhammer inspired Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony; of the world-shaping discoveries of women scientists; and an autobiographical sequence, which roots this poet’s authority and reflects on how power shapes what may be said in public.

‘Morley’s trademark fusion of Romani and English “Angloromani” forges afresh his lyric gifts’
Sinéad Morrissey

‘He holds our world up to a language mostly kept secret up to now... the refraction of the familiar is dizzying yet often moving.’
Les Murray

'David Morley’s ardent, vividly alive latest collection draws on his Romany background and knowledge as an ecologist and naturalist. The poems weave the dynamism of the Romany language with English to celebrate our intimacy with the natural world’s vast mystery and beauty'
Rebecca Tamás, The Guardian

David Morley is an ecologist and naturalist by background. He studied Zoology at the University of Bristol and pursued research on acid rain. His awards for poetry include the Ted Hughes Award and a Cholmondeley Award. His last poetry collection FURY was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. David is a Professor of Creative Writing at Warwick University and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature. Photo Credit: Claire McNamee