I’ve been blogging for more than a decade (oops, forgot the blog’s tenth birthday) and up until this year, I have not reviewed any poetry. Because I don’t read poetry. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s more that I’m not in the habit of seeking it out. However, inclusion of poetry in the Stella Prize meant reading Big Beautiful Female Theory earlier in the year, and more recently, The Jaguar by Sarah Holland-Batt (which incidentally, won the 2023 Stella Prize).

The titular poem comes midway in the collection and, despite what you might expect (and what the image on the cover suggests), the poem is about her father’s car  –

A folly he bought without test-driving,
vintage 1980 XJ, a rebellion against his tremor… Continue reading →