Book cover for Useful Verses

Synopsis

Details

23 March 2017
80 pages
9781509824199
Imprint: Picador

Reviews

Useful Verses is a remarkable first collection: great precision of language married to a uniquely informed and focused view of the natural world.
Osmond's job as a wild-food forager makes it unsurprising that his debut collection, Useful Verses, should be such a treasure trove of information. But what gives his poems energy is not just that they exhibit a deft authority on plants and poisons, remedies and road-kill, but that they are equally attuned to human and digital environments. The result is a work that reveals much about the world, both ancient and modern.
Useful Verses is a wonderfully original collection, which relishes and renews everything that poetry can do with language. It’s also a challenging vision of our relations with the natural world.’