Material Properties

The poems have an unforced charm, delighting in the wonder that surrounds us * Guardian *
Polley’s grasp … is masterful, and the book is a delight. He succeeds in echoing the texture of his poetic forebears, but with a wry panache which is all his own. – Stephanie Sy-Quia * The Poetry Review *
What sustains these playful, wise, gentle lyrics is Polley’s technical skill. Longer poems are activated and maintained by their musicality and by a particular way with syntax that seeks to give texture and topography to the poems. One feels them as one is delighted by them – Stephen Sexton * The Irish Times *
How often do you come across a book you read again and again and always with increasing pleasure? It’s the quality of the writing that draws me back, both rooted and adventuring, elegant yet at ease in different registers and vocabularies … Jacob Polley’s language reaches to the heart of his subjects – Jane Routh * The Friday Poem *

Jacob Polley is the author of four acclaimed poetry collections with Picador, The Brink, Little Gods, The Havocs, winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and Jackself, which won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2016. He was named one of the Next Generation poets in 2004, and his first novel, Talk of the Town, was published in 2009. Born in Carlisle in Cumbria, he now lives with his family on the North East coast and teaches at Newcastle University. Material Properties is his fifth collection.

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