The new Featured Writer is Graham Burchell whose third collection, Kate, has just been published by Indigo Dreams.  Being a member of one of Graham’s poetry groups I have  seen some of these poems grow and coalesce over time which has been a great honour and very instructive.  Extraordinary to see how a collection comes together.  I can tell you that in this book Graham has moved up yet another gear or even three as his turn of phrase and compression startles and astonishes the reader at every turn.  I can feel a gasp coming on each time I start reading just the two poems he sent me.

Written in Kate’s voice the poems follow the complexities and conflicts of modern life as seen through her eyes –  a fictional child of dysfunctional parents. You might say, ‘she never stood a chance’. When life becomes too strange to be bearable, Kate retreats like Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’ into her own fantasy world…