It’s always exciting to receive new poetry books and these two from Otter-Barry Books are smashers.

Belonging Street
Mandy Coe

In this collection Mandy Coe has written about urban life, wild life and family life, sometimes all of them in the same poem. There’s definitely something for every taste and every mood from story poems, puzzling ones, riddles and those that really touch the emotions.

What Mandy does so well is to help readers to see the beauty and the magic of the everyday world whether she’s writing about Helping Hands:
Grandad’s hands are brown / and rough with oil. / Grandma has a green thumb / potatoes pushing up the soil. // My aunt’s hands are pale, / inked with many colours. / My uncle’s hands are strong. / dusted with sugar and flour. // My stepdad’s hand uncurls / to reveal a coin’s bright shine. / My mother’s strong hands / sew each stitch in time. // And when any of us fall, / these hands will help us stand, / these mending, baking, making, / lending, helping hands.

Or talking of butterflies as in She Belongs to the World:
Drifting through Albania / from mountain tops to forest floor, / she is flutur. …
In Norway, / among black pines, a brilliant jewel, / she is sommerfugl’ … ‘Tumbling from the sky, / summer has arrived. / She is Butterfly.’.

And how magical-sounding are these lines from Animals Name the Constellations:
‘What’s in the stars up above?
asked Tadpole of his father.
It’s Silver Spawn in the Black Pond,
the Lily, Carp and Beaver.
Have they been there long?
Forever my love, forever.‘

Love Mandy Coe’s illustrations for this poem

And I’m definitely going to try The Rhythm of Sleep if I find myself unable to drop off at night. It would also make a marvellous relaxation ending to a yoga class except that one doesn’t actually want the participants to ‘slip into sleep.’ Not until they get home anyhow.

Dear Ugly Sisters and other poems
Laura Mucha, illustrated by Tania Rex

This is Laura Mucha’s debut collection although readers may have come across her poems through workshops, festivals, anthologies and other places where poetry is celebrated including the Caterpillar Poetry Prize that she was awarded in 2019 for the title poem. Now we have an entire book and that is most certainly something to be celebrated.

Her writing is wide-ranging and there are several other fairytale-related offerings such as Rapunzel, Did You Sleep Well? – a superbly playful take on The Princess and the Pea from the viewpoints of the pea, the prince and the princess; and Three Bears VS Goldilocks where Goldilocks puts her case concluding it thus: ‘ The Three Bears need to drop their charges, or they’’ll be / contested. / Their lodgings are so terrible, that THEY should be / arrested.’

Each one fresh and accessible, there are shape poems, haiku, poems constructed for the sheer joy of hearing their words said aloud as in Words That Make Me Smile that starts like this:
‘Tog, toggle, goggle, wiggle / wriggle, giggle, gnu ‘ and Listening To – an onomatopoeic immersion in birdsong.

You might choose to celebrate Ash’s Birchday, or while reading Dear Key Workers pay tribute (along with the child collaborators) to all those who have contributed so much during the coronavirus pandemic ; or perhaps ponder upon the plight of those children who in 2018 were separated from their parents after so it was said, illegally entering the United States that Laura speaks so movingly of in How Long Until I Can See My Mum?

Whether your penchant is for science, space, nature or things literary you’ll find a poem here, many of them quirkily illustrated by Tania Rex.

Although a lover of Shakespeare I found myself spluttering with delight at Compliments of Shakespeare (inspired by the bard’s insults); and celebrating the joys of reading with the penultimate, rhyming Travel By Book, the final verse of which is: ‘I’ve met many people, I’ve made many friends, / and though I’ve felt sad when I came to the end / of the journey I’d made – I can make it again / with the words of a wonderful book.’

And, what we have here IS a wonderful book. (You can even use the QR code on the back cover on your smartphone for a free audiobook narrated by Laura herself – how fab is that?)