Winner of the Ciampi International Poetry Prize 2011.

Martina Evans's third collection of poems begins and ends in the dentist's chair. In between come stories ranging from an Irish childhood to present-day London, featuring voices from the poet's own to those of her family, her cat, and a supporting cast of hectoring lawyers, born bores and rambling mothers.

Evans combines a novelist's gift for creating compelling narratives and capturing conversational idiosyncracies with a poet's ability to condense and refine, making Can Dentists Be Trusted? a book that will delight the many who enjoyed its acclaimed predecessor All Alcoholics Are Charmers (1998).

Martina Evans grew up in County Cork. After training as a radiographer in Dublin she moved to London in 1988. She teaches Creative Writing at the City Literary Institute and is currently Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen Mary College, University of London. She is also the author of three novels.