Clanchy's verse is immediate and musical, and informed by an acute, ironic intelligence. These are poems about men and boys: married men, self-sufficient men, wounded men, and men 'who own/the earth and love it'; poems about memory and time, set in school classrooms and muddy sports fields; and haunting, tender love poems. Clanchy's second collection, Samarkand, was described variously as 'enduringly readable' (Time Out) and 'very rewarding' (Times Literary Supplement). With these two collections, Clanchy has established herself as one of the most impressive -- and enjoyable -- of contemporary poets. 'Kate Clanchy is a real discovery. It's possible to imagine her becoming a genuinely popular poet, not because she writes down to her audience, but because she writes of what we know in such a way that we come to know it better, more sharply, in better colours' Helen Dunmore