Author Description

Flash Bang: New and Selected Poems' contains a selection from each of Jane Holland's published collections of poetry, plus new poems. An excellent overview of her work to date.Jane Holland is an established English poet and novelist. She won a major Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1996, and has since published five books of poetry, plus dozens of commercial novels under various pseudonyms. A former poetry and arts magazine editor, she has been Warwick Poet Laureate, and a tutor for both the Arvon Foundation and the Poetry School. She currently lives in Cornwall with her husband and five children.Contains extracts from: 'The Brief History of a Disreputable Woman' (Bloodaxe, 1997), 'Boudicca & Co.' (Salt Publishing, 2006), 'Camper Van Blues' (Salt Publishing, 2008), and 'On Warwick: Poems of the Warwick Poet Laureateship' (Nine Arches Press, 2008). Previously unpublished work includes extracts from 'Hango Hill: Poems of Illiam Dhone (Manx Martyr)' and from an experimental long poem, 'Adventure Sky! (an apocalypse in progress)'.Published by Thimblerig Press.*'Extremely powerful and varied ... Holland has both the clarity for the reader and the mastery of language to say what she means in a way that makes the brain tingle with both shock and pleasure ... This collection is outstanding.' ANGELA TOPPING, Stride Magazine'I reached the Boudicca sequence, and everything went electric ... There's a touch of Vicki Feaver about the violence and the cool delight in blood and innards, but the work is quite distinctive ... I was dashing from poem to poem, completely compelled.' HELENA NELSON, Ambit'a true craftswoman, a supple and graceful thinker with an effortless grasp of line, at the heart of the English lyric tradition.' FIONA SAMPSON, former Editor of Poetry Review'By breaking with the historic period of the tale, Holland comments on the repetition of atrocities and war, as if Boudicca is looking forward to the suffering and dehumanisation of twentieth-century wars.' ZO