Baker's Itch - Birthmark - Mad Hatter Syndrome - Caul - Deirdre's Duende - Weaver's Bottom - Microbes - Beethoven's Ear - Sailmaker's Palm - Fetch


How do we feel about the flesh that surrounds us and how do we deal with the knowledge that it will eventually do so no more? How do physical conditions and our attitudes towards the body - our own or another's - affect our emotional, physical and spiritual lives?

Winner of the 2006 McCash prize, Dilys Rose's third collection of poetry focuses on the human body in all its glory, comedy and frailty; on the quirks, hazards and conundrums of physiology; on intimations of mortality - and immortality. Rose draws fully-grown characters in a few vivid strokes; from a body double to a cannibal queen, their souls are personified in a limb, affliction or skill. These poems get under your skin and into your bones - you'll never look at the human body in the same way again!