The Million-petalled Flower of Being Here

Vidyan Ravinthiran's second collection is a book of sonnets for his wife. These are love poems that turn analytical, consider the world, and in which the pronoun 'we' aspires to stand for a larger community, including (if you like) readers themselves. Many describe life in the North East for a mixed-race couple, considering both the redemptive force of love and the cultural origins of our discontent.

Brexit; racist and sexist abuse; class; our work-life balance, and our relationship with institutions (be it our employer, or the NHS); taboos surrounding mental health; civil war in Sri Lanka; media representation of minorities; immigrant anxieties: these poems look inward, but also outward. Worrying at the link between society and our private lives, they scorn a politics which would put us all in separate boxes. Love, and imagination, may not conquer all, but as recent shocks suggest, `we' must at least try to understand people different to us.

Shortlisted for the 2019 Forward Prize for Best Collection, the collection is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.