THE ART OF FALLING - Softcover

Kim Moore is the most compelling poet under review because she is least afraid of the dark sounds speaking through her. She welcomes and invokes duende: the unworldly and worldly occupy the same verbal space. Her poetry is always out of the ordinary yet unshowy despite (or because of) her expert and subtle handling of line and form. The result: a balanced arrangement of wild gift and mindful shaping. Moore is also the poet most likely to communicate to people who do not read poetry yet her work is in no way simple or charming. Much promise yielded, much beckoning for the future. David Morley"

Kim Moore, in her lively debut poetry collection, sets out her stall in the opening poems, firmly in the North amongst ‘My People’: “who swear without knowing they are swearing... scaffolders and plasterers and shoemakers and carers...”. The poet’s voice is direct, rhythmic, compelling. The lives of others also feature throughout, including a quietly devastating central sequence, ‘How I abandoned My Body To His Keeping’: the story of a woman embroiled in a relationship marked by coercion and violence. These are close-to-the-bone pieces, harrowing and exact.