Commandments

Jackie Wills's fourth collection is arguably her strongest to date. Here are poems of love and disenchantment, poems about landscapes, both familiar and unfamiliar, poems in which the poet, with her acute powers of observation, looks at the 'ordinary' and redraws it in an extraordinary, even a disturbing, way. Commandments is divided into two distinct parts. The first part has two main points of focus: one is the Ten Commandments, each of which Jackie Wills re-states with such sensitivity and understanding that the impact is sometimes overwhelming; the other is the poet herself in poems which look inward but which have a universal relevance. The 'commandment' poems and what the poet refers to as the 'me' poems interweave in this first section to extraordinary effect. By contrast, the second part of the book consists of a cycle of landscape poems, largely about Wills's home territory, Brighton and its environs. Jackie Wills' first collection Powder Tower (Arc, 1995) was shortlisted for the 1995 T.S. Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her second collection, Party (Leviathan), was published in 2000 and her third, Fever Tree (Arc), in 2003. In 2004, Mslexia magazine named her one of the top ten new women poets of the decade and also in 2004, she was poet in residence at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.

Table of Contents:
Part I: The birds sing about water / Honour one god / Love song for Fidel Castro / Don't make idols / The other woman / Don't take my name in vain / Impala / Day of rest / Girls / Honour your father and mother / Alphabetic / Don't kill / Mind museum / Don't commit adultery / Women of affairs / Don't steal / A life of sin / Don't lie / Her promises / Don't covet your neighbour's goods / Leaving it to the cuckoos / The islands / Face / My mother's half / The me who drinks too much / Her fangs, her horns / The me who's a wish / Ravine / The me who's a mother / Inured / The me who won't be civilised / Pieces of her / Waiting / Her sleepless nights / Fire-eater / Letter / The oldest kingdom / Desire / Crawling on pebbles. PART II: For a path of 12 circular stepping stones / Concerns of a mature woman / How long could you stretch a summer? / Salmonskin coat / Theatre / A day in November / Appeasement / Whitehawk / Cuckmere Haven / Suspended / Improvisation / Where I live . Biographical note.

About the Author :
Jackie Wills' first collection 'Powder Tower' (Arc, 1995) was shortlisted for the 1995 T.S. Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Books Society Recommendation. Her second collection, 'Party' (Leviathan), was published in 2000 and her third, 'Fever Tree' (Arc), in 2003. In 2004, 'Mslexia' magazine named her one of the top ten new women poets of the decade and also in 2004, she was poet in residence at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. Her poetry has been printed on paper napkins, t-shirts and designer dresses, broadcast on BBC News On-line, Radio 4 and published in national papers. She has received writing awards from the Arts Council, Society of Authors and Arts Council South. A former journalist, she has worked for Channel Four and Discovery Channel websites, local, national, business press and Octopus publishing. She now survives on commissions, residencies and writing workshops in schools, with community groups, museums, art galleries, orchestras, businesses and, most recently, at Buckingham Palace. She lives in Brighton with her two children.