A Year in the New Life

SHORTLISTED FOR THE T.S. ELIOT PRIZE 2021<br>POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION<br><br>'Jack Underwood has developed an utterly clear lyric that rebukes moral obviousness, drives against false certainty. It's as refreshing as it is instructive . . . Underwood has become one of my favorite poets.' Kaveh Akbar<br><br>Jack Underwood's poetry debut,Happiness(2015), was celebrated for its unconventional and daring tone: 'conversational, arresting . . . weird, singular' (Guardian). Such qualities are on accomplished display in this anticipated new collection, as the poems mature and move on to a wide range of preoccupations, including imminent societal collapse and public unrest; the limits, myths and complexities of masculinity and fatherhood; and uncanny, often amusing scenarios, such as serving drinks to a gathering of fifteen babies or group kissing in Empathy Class.<br><br>Throughout, incongruous and domestic subjects realign in skewed lyrics and thought experiments, intimately expressed in 'a new language / of the familiar' ('The Landing'). All is presented with a generosity and tenderness that makes the poet so unmistakable - and indispensable for the strange times in which we live.<br><br>'I was done in by these poems, but I really lived as I read them; each one holding life and time in a balletics of stress and flow.' Holly Pester