Ambush at Still Lake

A Financial Times Poetry Book of the Year 2024

Caroline Bird's new poems show us the ambush of real life that occurs in the stillness after the happy ending. This is a collection about marriage, lesbian parenthood, addiction and recovery in which a recurring dream is playing out: a world where mums impale themselves on pogo-sticks, serial killers rattle around in basements, baby monitors are haunted by someone else's baby and, through it all, love stays and stays like a stationary rollercoaster that turns out to be the scariest, most thrilling ride in the amusement park. 

Her editor welcomed the book in these terms: 'It is bleak, repellent and hilarious in an American Psycho-ish way. Hectic and vivid.' 

'Vegetable crisps. 
The words yawn like a black hole, 
sucking my eyes backwards 
into my head until I see 
my own brain glowing 
like a radioactive cauliflower.'