Ai Ai! Pianissimo

Innovative and energetic, this is Alben's first collection. There are surprises at the turn of every line. Her poems spit themselves like cherry stones through the windows of their words and bounce out into the world, finding and striking new targets in ways that only good poems can do. Intensely visual, erotically charged and linguistically adventurous, they explore with deft humour and poise the ways we rub along together both as lovers and travellers across the shifting borders of multi-media, international life, where belonging is difficult but the impulse to connect remains as powerful as ever - Language is a map and I admire your paperclips (from 'Modern Love Affair').