Content warning: rape

This second poetry collection by Kim Moore offers a series of personal testimonies which stand witness to the ‘everyday sexism’ that all women in our culture are subjected to. The book is sharp, searing, filled with an unflinching honesty yet wrapped, also, in a sublime sense of the lyrical – Moore is a master of pace and tempo, with a strong sense of how words fall on the ear as well as work on the page.

I’ve read Moore’s debut pamphlet and her first collection and both were brilliant – this third is no exception; except, I feel, it is braver, because it takes the ‘f word’ (feminist) and wields it as the necessary tool – no, not weapon – that it is. Yes, there is anger, there is even rage; but also there is love, tenderness, empathy, and often a complex intertwining of emotions, even in poems detailing what, in hindsight, are wrong, abusive, or aggressive actions by others.

A poem about the rape of someone Moore knows affected me particularly: “though your throat cannot remember saying no / your heart cannot remember saying yes”. A culturally significant book that everyone, everywhere – irrespective of their sex – should definitely read.