But & Though

'Hawkey's poems are electric, buzzing with all the possibilities of language. He has much to say, and is saying it brilliantly' – Nick Laird, winner of the Forward Prize for Poetry and author of Up Late

Here is a wonderful new voice, full of a spiky energy accompanied by a wild imagination. His language bristles with a sense of its own freshness. His working-class world is alive and quivering. A brilliant collectionJay Parini, author of Borges and Me

A requiem to fathers, to the streets, to the estates; at times a smash in the face with a skateboard, laughing and ‘chattin breeze’. Hawkey unravels the raw truth behind grief, alcohol dependency, and family traumas, ultimately finding ‘God dwells in every man’Roy McFarlane, author of The Healing Next Time

Hawkey writes with serious ambition: these poems are daring in their formal organisation and their political intellect. There is also a real humour here, an ironic, knowing sensibility that never gets in the way of the poems' emotional contents. Hawkey tackles difficult subjects - alcohol dependency, deprivation, and intergenerational trauma - with admirable lucidity, attuned to both their tragedy and comedyPadraig Regan, author of the Forward Prize-shortlisted Some Integrity