"These poems are truly 'made' by the craftsman in the true meaning of the word - poet as 'maker'. They display a remarkable range of tone and reference, tremendous verbal dexterity, strong, muscular, visceral use of language, yet, at the same time, a softness – a delicate, gossamer-like quality. One true test of great poems is that they meld form and content, cause and effect, to a point where you can’t see the joins, and in this collection Beagrie does it time and time again. Ranging from seemingly rough-hewn dialect chat, to the myths and folklore of the Celts, the Native Americans or the Finns, these poems hit the spot. They raise a tingle on the back of the neck, light a bulb in the brain, more often than any recent collection I have seen. Beagrie’s handling of different forms and registers, his sheer variety of approach, is stunning."
David Woolley