Tom Kelly’s The Time Office (Red Squirrel Press) is a mixture of new poems and selections from his five previous collections. The North–East of England is brought sharply into focus in its rawness and its compassion and you had better not mistake that last word for patronising near-relation ‘Pity’: these poems present a world that is known from the inside and the poet’s accuracy of detail and concern prowl around the edge to prevent any easy attitudinising.
Ian Brinton
Tears in the Fence
Number 55 Summer 2012