Man Walking on Water with Tie Askew

Margaret Wilmot writes like a true citizen of the world. She is as at home in the nine-part
sequence: Quanta US: ?Wide-screen America?/ prelude to a Western,? as in a sailor?s hostel
in Buenos Aires: (Your Holiness, Your Grace, Dear Sir, Dear Pope). She writes with a
gleaming, persistent sense of wonder. Small, yet vital details are spotted, pondered and
brought into the spotlight of her keen gaze, becoming poignant, whimsical and deeply
significant in turn. Horse riding in Santa Catalina (Santa Catalina), she is halted by a
migration of frogs: ?Each step will be a killing?, and who knew that the bullying magpie can
recognise itself in mirrors? Just like humans! (The Thriving Magpie) This collection
breathes with her dazzling use of language, and what I can only define as a sort of heightened
energy underpinned by an indefinable sense of spirituality. It is a unique and welcome
addition to a sometimes rather tired contemporary poetry scene.