Calamities!

In her second, spine-cracking collection, Jane Arthur wants ' to get morbid' . Moving with ease between the cerebral and the ethereal she measures her anxieties against a cosmic canvas - taking in everything from meteorites and distant planets to pomanders and cat's ears. Whether contemplating time, regret, or the end of the world, these poems don't flinch. But in writing against hope, Arthur also writes against hopelessness, and finds, at the heart of it all, a bear, sleeping soundly - or perhaps dead.