“Boy Thing is a thing of wonder. These are poems that negotiate anew the tender, hurt territory of a boy abruptly unfathered with every fresh reading; and that travel into the wonderment of becoming a father of boys. We are given a boy’s-eye-view of 1970s Cornwall with a music and detail so meticulous that we yearn with Clarke for its lost territories. But these are not just poems of archive or archaeology; they are revelatory, dynamic and raw. Clarke is crucially attuned to the secret messages received in boyhood – its preoccupations and awakenings, epiphanies and abuses, and its shames. This book is unmissable: human and humane, grimy and sublime.” - Fiona Benson “Boy Thing is a beautiful book – sensual, atmospheric, full of nature and ritual. These poems while formally precise, possess a rawness that is startling and utterly compelling.” - Ella Frears

John Wedgwood Clarke is a poet, prose non-fiction writer and academic. He was born in Penzance and raised in St Ives, Cornwall. He trained as an actor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama before going on to study literature and complete a PhD in ‘Objectivist’ poetry at the University of York. He is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. His first collection Ghost Pot was described by Bernard O'Donoghue as a 'masterpiece that rewards continual rereading'. Clarke's poetry often grows out of collaboration with scientists and other artists, and is displayed in art galleries, museums and in the landscape. He has directed major research projects and commissions, including most recently, Red River: Listening to a Polluted River, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. His credits as television presenter and researcher for BBC Four include, Through the Lens of Larkin (2017) and Cornwall's Red River (2021).