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Saturday, 15 February 2020

Interview on Tim Taylor's Blog

There's a short interview with me over on Tim Taylor's blog today - with a poem from my forthcoming collection (out 28th February). The poem, The New Knowing, was part of the Northern Poetry Library's Poem of the North.


You can read it HERE

And here's an excerpt from Amanda McLeod's review:
 
Amanda uses beautiful metaphors to bring the losses back to life; the sea and birds are two motifs that appear repeatedly throughout the collection. The imagery these create builds stunning visual pictures of each poem. Sensory detail is essential to these images and Huggins makes bold and effective use of these, from the thump of a sparrow against a car windscreen to the sunlight trapped beneath glass flavour of a tomato to the faint heartbeat of a beloved pet. These images are served well by lyrical language and gentle turns of phrase that add a truly musical quality to the poems. Occasional slant rhyme leads the poetry back towards traditional forms in some areas without seeming trite or cheesy, and there is a pleasing variety of form. Huggins uses line breaks to suspend phrases, allowing them to hold multiple meanings until the reader arrives at the next line and this pulls the poems along, encouraging the reader forwards without seeming frantic. This tone suits the subject matter perfectly.
The Collective Nouns for Birds is a delicate balance of pain and peace. Amanda Huggins reminds us all that loss is a part of the cyclic nature of life, and that we can look back without becoming mired in grief. Those moments weave into our hearts and become a part of the fabric of ourselves – we need not cling to them tightly to keep them with us. This is an accomplished debut.

You can read the full review HERE

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