Andrew Bailey’s début collection of poems Zeal honours the moments in which the everyday face of the world slips for a moment. Dream, myth, faith or intoxication will lead you there; but these glimmers can intrude upon a life when they are least expected. With a poetic eye alert to these moments, and grounded in the works of Blake, Hopkins, Raine and Redgrove, Andrew Bailey’s poems follow an unselfconscious and magnetic path towards the more than quotidian.
“Elements of earth, air, fire and water are the presiding spirits of this collection, poems that explore transactions between a strongly realised physical world and inward experience. Fluid tactile language is tempered here by stringent observation and wit.” (Penelope Shuttle)