Black Country

Author: Liz Berry

Poetry by individual poets

Published on 7 August 2014 by Vintage Publishing (Chatto & Windus) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 80 pages
216 x 136 x 7mm | 96g

WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE BEST FIRST COLLECTION 2014*PBS Recommendation 2014*‘When I became a bird, Lord, nothing could not stop me…’In Black Country, Liz Berry takes flight: to Wrens Nest, Gosty Hill, Tipton-on-Cut; to the places of home. The poems move from the magic of childhood – bostin fittle at Nanny’s, summers before school – into deeper, darker territory: sensual love, enchanted weddings, and the promise of new life. In Berry’s hands, the ordinary is transformed: her characters shift shapes, her eye is unusual, her ear attuned to the sounds of the Black Country, with ‘vowels ferrous as nails, consonants / you could lick the coal from.’ Ablaze with energy and full of the rich dialect of the West Midlands, this is an incandescent debut from a poet of dazzling talent and verve.