How the gods pour tea

This new collection by Lynn Davies, her first in eight years, abounds in departures: words and communities die, trout-lilies and passengers vanish, even the King and Queen of Fairies disappear. In poem after poem, Davies's powerful imagination blends observation and fancy, passion and playfulness, producing strikingly fresh metaphors. Squirrels paddle away on twig-rafts; giant horses take to the sky. Some poems give simple weight to the details of everyday life; others evoke an imaginative world inhabited by giant beavers, elf-thugs, and the great caw-dragon. Throughout this magnificently fresh collection, the ocean, the rain, and the river suggest something big on the move in our lives even when we feel stranded. Displaying a dexterity of tone and an understated bravura, she writes of the extremities of losing and then awakening, honouring gratitude with "as many words as new leaves."