In the title poem Salvation Jane (a purple thistle-like weed), Greta Stoddart suggests that in naming something we empower it to fulfil our idea of its meaning and purpose. The poem typifies, as Vernon Scannell wrote, ‘the way her poems display a pleasing fusion of intelligence and sensuous perception with the knack of finding the right rhythmic pattern to convey it’.

At the heart of many of these poems lies an apprehension of things being lost or destroyed – whether a child or an illusion, faith or the very earth we live on. The
world changes, too, when someone enters it. Greta Stoddart’s poems of motherhood are intense double-edged celebrations; as grief has its consolations, so joy is rarely entire.

Greta Stoddart was born in 1966 and grew up in Oxford. She studied in Paris and Manchester. Her first book, At Home in the Dark, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 2002. She now lives in Devon, south-west England and works as a poetry tutor.

"At Home in the Dark is a fine debut collection from a poet of huge promise." – Adam Newey, New Statesman

“An impressive debut by a young poet who has already attracted a lot of interest.” – Robert Potts, The Guardian on At Home in the Dark

“In its mix of dramatic poise and control, Stoddart’s writingis cool enough to warm the heart of any creature.”– David Wheatley, Times Literary Supplement

“That space `between memory and event' is the territory Greta Stoddart inhabits...[she] laments how limited our capacity to reclaim our subjects is, even when our desire to do so knows no bounds."- Helen Mort, Poetry London

"There is no poem in this collection which does not impress, nothing I would wish to change. I am in expert hands and delighted to be led through the patterns, the symmetries of light and shade, the repeated motifs of reverses and surprises."-Ann Atkinson The North, Issue 43