Myrtle

In her heady debut pamphlet Myrtle, Ruth Wiggins celebrates the primal forces of nature and the human heart. Interweaving the ancient with the modern world, she explores fertility and death, in poems that are imbued with a subtle eroticism. There is a serious playfulness at work here too: a carnival stallholder battles with a spider, and a bored vegetarian contemplates life as a fox, while lovers fear death and separation as the gods look on in amusement. This free-wheeling and assured collection is full of dry humour and wisdom, and is by turns poignant, dark and full of zest.