Please Do Not Touch or Feed the Horses by Tom Bailey

In this poignant and adventurous pamphlet, Tom Bailey captures the joy of connection, the omnipresence of grief, and the quiet fortitude of those navigating both. Portents come in many forms: horses, leaves, paper boats, "a magpie rattl[ing] the rainstick of its throat". But so does hope: in fancy dress parties, in "the / song the conch sings", in the way "the river threads / its noisy voice through the needle of itself". With dry wit and piercing clarity, Bailey interweaves humour and pathos to craft poems that linger in the mind and reveal a captivating new voice.