The Clockwork Gift

'The Clockwork Gift' is Claire Crowther's second collection of poems, following 'Stretch of Closures' which was shortlisted for the Jerwood/Aldeburgh Prize for Best First Collection in 2007. The poems in 'The Clockwork Gift' continue the lyrical and reflective voice of the previous volume and examine the place of older women in contemporary culture. Claire Crowther combines a control of rhetoric with myth-making skill and these poems include striking new figures such as the yellow-furred thike and its human cousin, or the countrywoman who answers the call of Maleficence. This is also the landscape of looking back; memory is a faculty idolised in our time and shown here to be as fragile as the stuff of grandmother's dresses yet tough enough to bond complex human relationships.