Sea horse

'Star-brained and sea heavy, we washed up together on these life-torn shores one afternoon last summer' Written over a period of thirty years in Britain and Portugal, Sea horse is a short collection of poems that traces in snapshots the joys, struggles and concerns of life from young adulthood through to middle age. By turns both restless and mindful and covering universal themes such as love, pain and parenthood, the poems also touch on the transience of existence and attempt to capture the beauty and brutality of the natural world, including humanity itself. Mark Calland 'has a feel for language... I liked the "mud-lock" and "squid suck" in "Permutations."' SEAMUS HEANEY