Bread Without Butter

With warmth and unsentimentally Wendy French relives her family's life across generations, particularly her roots in rural Wales. Often through staunch, simple details, she conveys a sense of the human spirit. Moniza Alvi The past is never past and the dead are never dead in Wendy French's radiant new collection, her mother's distant voice is in the pull of her hairbrush, and her father still turns on a walk, a revenant long after his time, to look for the others. The Welsh farmyard, fields, bacon frying, and softly-spoken stories are at the heart of rich poems. Michael Hulse