Description
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICE Kingdomland is the debut poetry collection of Rachael Allen – a writer of rare vision and flair. The world she creates is suffused with surreal images and uncanny incidents. Unexplained violences and strange metamorphoses take shape in the ‘glowering dusk’. And yet, all too clearly, we recognise life here on earth, its everyday griefs, dysfunctions and injustices. Where distinctions between murder and bloodletting, corruption and consumption are blurred. Where a pet tarantula or mimic octopus might find itself beside glands and processed meats. Landscapes shift and identities dissolve: ‘the red bricks of the day’ exist ‘in a woman’s chest’, a human presence is ’embedded in the walls’. All appears changed, but familiar. Intercut with oblique verse fragments and a series of linked sequences, Allen blends elements of fiction and ekphrasis to create a haunting and unforgettable debut.
Comic Poems 
The 'White City' 
Milk and Honey 
Luck Is the Hook 
Being Alive 
Gold from the Stone 
The Snail and the Whale 
The Moon Before Morning 
A Republic of Linen 
Soemps 
New and Selected Poems, Volume Two 
Hansel and Gretel 
Spiritlands 
Somewhere Else Entirely 
101 Poems About Childhood 
My First Mr. Men Nursery Rhymes