Many of these poems were written in Northern Ireland in the year since the ceasefire. As well as war, reconciliation now has a place in Carol Rumens’s imaginative engagement with her new adopted home. Those poems with English themes owe much to her response to Belfast’s unexpected balancing act, as well as to the perspective and safety of a distanced view. There are also fables inspired by Celtic mythology, and translations of Russian poems from Cold War times which are no less relevant in our present climate of market totalitarianism and historical erasure.

Carol Rumens sets up so many opposites in Best China Sky (childhood and motherhood, suburb and vision, sun and rain, intimacy and solitude) that its muse is probably Janus, his throne no longer an armoured car but a rainbow.

Poetry Book Society Recommendation.