This selection covers a twenty-year period, and also includes a substantial body of new work. C.J. Allen’s witty and stylish poetry, drawing as it does on the New York School, and merging it with a British sensibility, is becoming increasingly well-known and admired.

C.J. Allen has been widely published in magazines from Modern Painters to Poetry Review, has been broadcast on BBC local radio and Radio 4, and has been a prize-winner in numerous competitions.

"‘Readability’ is a good thing in poetry but, as I understand it, it doesn’t mean ‘easy to read’; ‘readability’ in poetry means the poem is a pleasure to read and is interesting. These two qualities travel so much hand-in-hand they more or less make a tautology. For some time C. J. Allen has been one of our most consistently readable poets."

Martin Stannard