The Skylark’s Call

‘In The Skylark’s Call, Paul Jeffcutt proves himself to be a poet at ease with subjects that so many make a mess of. All the human condition, in its glorious difficulty, is here: the spiritual, the erotic, cancer, politics and history. But the making of these poems is his unshowy expertise with language. It is only a matter of time before he acquires the readership that poetry such as this ultimately insists on.’
—Kevin Higgins, Poet, and the author and seven collections of poetry.
https://www.salmonpoetry.com/

‘The Skylark’s Call takes us on an exhilarating and affecting journey through both the physical world and the human psyche. We see these landscapes through a huge range of characters, from Robert Louis Stevenson to a man in a gorilla suit, revealing not just a host of stories, but also the poet’s sharp eye for observation. We are left with a marvellous sense of what it is to be alive, of the urgency of life.’
—Moyra Donaldson, Poet, and the author of nine collections of poetry.
https://moyradonaldson.com/

‘Paul Jeffcutt’s debut collection was alert to mythology, the past and mortality, with a sense of justice very much of the present. The poems in his long-awaited second collection are abrim with those same concerns, but with a new economy, a brusque close attention to the bits of language itself, and with a purposeful outrage. His is a vividly-expressed lyric gift that builds to a memorable collection.’
—Damian Smyth, Head of Literature & Drama at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and the author of six collections of poetry.
https://www.damiansmyth.com/

‘These poems represent a serious reckoning with the horrors and beauties of life, death and our shared common world. Stark, simple ― but never less than complex.’
—Ian Sansom, Professor of Creative Writing at Queen’s University, Belfast, and the author of seventeen books (novels and works of literary criticism).
https://www.iansansom.net/