Scottish poet Hazel Frew’s first collection of poems offers tales of families, of growing up, and of the world around us, seen with uncommonly fresh eyes. I like my poems to get to the point, be direct, but in an unusual, indirect way. Glimpses of dreams, lovers, sickness, grief-strange portraits and incidents. Succinct, neat, precise. Cutting things away, shearing images, keeping words to a minimum-hopefully elaborate, sharp, funny and poignant-with the aloud sound of the poem intrinsic to the form. The resulting poems incisive, honest and humorous. My first collection is a camera of twelve years, cataloguing quirky characters and events, family, relationships, death, the world, comets and beyond. (Hazel Frew)