Chick - Winner of the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize

Review ------ Chick opens with a powerful sequence of poems centred around the poet's memories of her Chinese/black Jamaican her - a complex, larger than life character who came to London in the late 40s and eked out a living as, among other things, a gambler. But the book is very much more than a personal reminiscence and family history. This is a collection cross-hatched with myth and history, a hymn to London as much as to its characters. Though all the poems have a strong, vividly cinematographic line, they are also beautifully lyrical - sung stories, offering us the glimpsed lives of strangers and lovers. But however poignant and moving it may be, the collection remains doggedly celebratory of life itself, of people and place, loved and remembered. Each poem takes us a little further into the mystery of lives in a world that is as incomprehensible as it is unforgettable. This is an outstanding, unputdownable first collection. --John Glenday Here is a poet with a commanding style; her voice is entirely her own, both rich and laconic. These are poems springing from the page with vitality, rue and in. Her elegies are restrained and devastating. An extraordinary debut. --Penelope Shuttle One of the most memorable readings I've ever attended came via Londoner Hannah Lowe, whose first book of poems (Chick) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize, The Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry 2014... I found Hannah Lowe to be totally mesmerising and I cannot recommend highly enough the book which has procled her one of the 20 Next Generation poets. --Eileen Casey, Senior Times About the Author ---------------- Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese her. She has lived in London, Brighton and Santa Cruz, California. She studied American Literature at the University of Sussex and has a Masters degree in Refugee Studies. She has worked as a teacher of literature and creative writing, and is currently studying for a PhD. Her pamphlet The Hitcher (The Rialto, 2011) was widely praised. Her first book-length collection Chick (Bloodaxe Books, 2013) won the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize for a distinctive first book of poetry, and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry 2014.

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