This is a book that makes you think. It challenges you to work out what these poems mean for you. They are very personal poems, and that is their great strength. The clue to these poems and how to understands them came to me with the words “Gants Hill”. This is very specific to me. I never thought that I would begin a review of a poetry book by mentioning Gants Hill, so I expect that I had better explain. Gants Hill is an underground station on the Central Line beneath a roundabout. It is one of the least poetic places you can imagine. I know this because I worked in the library there for a short while. Yet, Gants Hill gets a mention in one of the prose poems in this book. That is because the poet’s mother worked there in a Thai restaurant when she first arrived in the UK These poems are very specific about places in London, in Chicago and in other places. It is also very specific about people. These poems mention Goldhawk Road, going for a drink in The Chandos, which is a pub on the corner of St. Martin’s Lane and Duncannon Street near Trafalgar Square. It is these specifics that anchor the poems in their reality. They show us the time and the place. This is important because the poems are reflections on identity, family, relationships and understanding oneself in the context of others. The words are especially well chosen. When he describes a child going to sleep with cuddly toys around his head, you can see the barricade, you can feel the need for a safe space. There are specifics that tell you everything that you need to know. “He was from Angola, but grew up in Porto. He worked in Carphone Warehouse”. He is an African who grew up in Portugal and now works as a mobile phone salesman. What else do you need to know? The wording is much more succinct, precise and it leaves you to imagine the story. There is much in these poems that is very specific. “We were at a pizza restaurant for Hugo’s birthday”. Dan contacts them to say that he is going to be late. It all sounds normal and it is, including Dan getting run over on the way to the restaurant. Then we learn that Dan is supposed to be going to Australia where he is going to finish his novel about a wood elf. This information leaks out of the poem as they are sitting in a pizza restaurant in Covent Garden, and the author is glancing out of the window. In the next poem we learn “I hadn’t seen Hugo in years” and that they used to play Sonic the Hedgehog in primary school. There is a certain playfulness in the way that the poet does this. Will Harris has described these poems as “gnomic”. They certainly are not obvious. They are elliptical. They leave you, the reader, to draw out the meaning, and that meaning has to be relevant to yourself, and yet they tell very concise stories about ordinary people dealing with things that have happened in their lives. To me, it is a marvel that someone who is so young can produce poetry that is so profound and knowing about life. PS For those who do not know, Rendang is a spicy beef stew which is part of the cuisine of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

Just because a book of poems makes you think doesn't mean it is good. The best poems for me are the ones that can articulate difficult thoughts so effortlessly.