Minx by Karen Downs-Barton

Heart-breaking yet uplifting, this unforgettable portrait of an Anglo-Romani childhood on the edge of society, in and out of the perils of state care, marks the arrival of a vital new voice in British poetry 'Don't worry, I'm here in the house where every room has a name, but children's names are often forgotten' Heart-breaking yet uplifting, this lyrical evocation of an Anglo-Romani childhood on the edge of society marks the arrival of a vital new voice. MINX draws us into the vibrant but precarious world of a multi-racial Romani family, whose troubled mother struggles to support her two girls on the proceeds of her shadowy nighttime work. The sisters develop a powerful bond, which helps them survive once they're taken into care, under the punishing regime of a children's home that separates them. Through a series of daring experiments with form and narrative, MINX captures how it feels to be caught between a culture whose traditional ways are being lost and a wider society that despises them. With a verve and playfulness that belies their pain, these poems explore what it means to belong: the search for a language and heritage erratically passed on and the cost of being forcibly assimilated.