Liz Berry Black Country

Takes flight: to Wrens Nest, Gosty Hill, Tipton-on-Cut; to the places of home. This book includes poems that 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.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE BEST FIRST COLLECTION 2014 *PBS Recommendation 2014* When I became a bird, Lord, nothing could not stop me… In this collection, 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.
The gorgeous, crystalline debut collection from rising star Liz Berry. In Black Country, Liz Berry takes us home: to Wrens Nest, Gosty Hill, Bilston; to the summer where she first learned to talk; to the woods where the secrets are hidden. A parade of riotous characters abound: the Bone Orchard Wench, the Lady Rotcatcher, Carmella 'Ower Lady of the Hairdresser'. But her poems also transport us into other, different worlds of the poet's imagination: the memories and magic of childhood to the dawning of adulthood and the dark, sweet mysteries of love and sexuality. Ablaze with energy and colour, and alive with a thrilling command of language, Liz Berry's poems are transformative, almost magical: her characters are protean, her eye unusual; all rooted in the sights and sounds of her native Black Country: 'vowels ferrous as nails, consonants you could lick the coal from.' This is a distinctive, assured, and unforgettable debut full of fierce poems of wonder and incandescent joy. It marks the arrival of a luminous talent in British poetry.