Lairs

Darkly suggestive of animal dens, shelter, and secretive havens, Lairs is inspired by mathematics, the poem becoming a kind of nest, a beautiful accumulation of dense detail. The poems are complex, introspective, reminiscent of fervid lockdowns as well as offering a subtle strand on post-Brexit life, a mocking of establishment conservatism.

Born in Cheshire, Judy Brown studied English at Cambridge and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Her pamphlet, Pillars of Salt (Templar Poetry, 2006), won the Templar Pamphlet Competition. Judy’ s first poetry collection, Loudness (Seren, 2011), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for best first collection and the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize. Her most recent, Crowd Sensations (Seren, 2016), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and shortlisted for the Ledbury Forte Second Collection Prize.