Jo Shapcott's award-winning first three collections, gathered in "Her Book: Poem
s 1988-1998", revealed her to be a writer of ingenuous, politically acute and pr
ovocative poetry, and rightly earned her a reputation as one of the most origina
l and daring voices of her generation. In "Of Mutability", Shapcott is found wri
ting at her most memorable and bold. In a series of poems that explore the natur
e of change - in the body and the natural world, and in the shifting relationshi
ps between people - these poems look freshly but squarely at mortality. By turns
grave and playful, arresting and witty, the poems in "Of Mutability" celebrate
each waking moment as though it might be the last, and in so doing restore wonde
r to the to the smallest of encounters.
