Congratulations to Clare Best, whose new collection Beyond the Gate has received rave reviews in London Grip and The Friday Poem.
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In London Grip, Alex Josephy finds it a “warmly intelligent, questioning collection’ with ‘luminosity and moments of playful beauty.”
“Best has united a wide range of poems with care and tact, in a way that seems to me in itself musical, so that the whole collection plays out its themes across the five inter-connected parts.”
“Throughout the collection, Best is in conversation with nature. Country life, its people and history are present in almost all the poems. There are moments of pure delight.”
Read the full review here.
In The Friday Poem Charlotte Gann writes “Throughout this rich collection the poet walks the line between physical and spiritual.”
“Part of what makes Clare Best’s poetry evocative is the observational precision she brings to bear – whether to her old, familiar, chalkland Sussex landscape or her newer adopted flatlands of Suffolk. She writes great ‘nature’ poetry. And something pronouncedly different.”
“Her unifying themes – of nature and love and loss and consolation – reverberate throughout the book as we walk for a spell with this keenly-observant and deeply-informed poet.”
Read the full review here.