Black Country

WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE BEST FIRST COLLECTION 2014*PBS Recommendation 2014* When I became a bird, Lord, nothing could not stop me In Black Country, Liz Berry takes flight: to Wrens Nest, Gosty Hill, Tipton-on-Cut; to the places of home. The poems move from the magic of childhood bostin fittle at Nanny s, summers before school into deeper, darker territory: sensual love, enchanted weddings, and the promise of new life. In Berry s hands, the ordinary is transformed: her characters shift shapes, her eye is unusual, her ear attuned to the sounds of the Black Country, with vowels ferrous as nails, consonants / you could lick the coal from. Ablaze with energy and full of the rich dialect of the West Midlands, this is an incandescent debut from a poet of dazzling talent and verve.