Linguistically charged, rhythmically and technically assured, theatrically daring, this poetry collection restores mythical and historical female figures to the human imagination. The cast of characters includes Greek goddesses, an 18th Century Chines pirate, pilots in the WWII Serbian Night Bomber Regiment, black American golf and tennis pro, Althea Gibson, and photographer Khadija Saye, who died in the Grenfell fire. The poems are robust, playful, tender and compassionate. The work as a whole forms an unsentimental and richly detailed testament to women’s resistance. It bears witness, expressing and celebrating the life-force and capacity for love that defines each character and that we recognise as poetry’s authentic subject matter.

Graham Mort

Unknown cracks on with its task of introducing and re-introducing us to women who might otherwise slip through history and culture’s ever wide female-shaped holes. Brisk and beautiful poems speed us from goddesses like Kore to semi-mythic figures like Cartimandua ( Lost Queen of the North as I think of her) to real life women like Khadija Saye, a young artist who tragically died in the Grenfell fire. Works of reclamation like this are ongoingly necessary-which is frustrating-but when they’re done so well, are a pleasure and a joy.

Kate Fox