With deadpan humour, and at times, with great sympathy, William Thirsk-Gaskill shows us what it's like to be the young son of a much older dad; reflects on life, love, marriage; and on who we are, what we discard, and who we become as time passes. His debut collection will bring a smile as well as a tear."Many of the poems in Throwing Mother in The Skip deal with what's left when things have gone, been taken or thrown away. There's little abstraction here and the relics that pepper the texts are relics of the everyday, icons of domestic life - hand-held dictating machines, odd shoes and socks, colanders, chipped Habitat plates, board games, bent cutlery, mulched towels, an unused laminator. The poems are sturdy, concise and focussed, often delivered in an unwavering matter-of-fact tone, but between the precisely placed words you get this little anarchic mess, this subtle fizz of tension, like a plug with faulty wiring crackling dangerously in the power socket and it's this subtle fizz that fuels Thirsk-Gaskill's debut collection."

Gaia Holmes Poet and lecturer