Intimate Nature

‘In Intimate Nature, Z D Dicks hops the border between the human and the animal, exploring the increasingly fraught coexistence of civilisation and non-human species, while offering us dark glimpses of our feral selves. Wolves, chimps, magpies, vipers and ants all teem through this energetic and vivid collection, populating an urban jungle where the poet ‘howls’ like a ‘dog on a chain’. - (David Clarke) .....'Poems that sizzle with electric energy, an unusual and unforgettable collection excavated from an excitable, surreal mind.’ - (Jennie Farley) .....‘Potent, explosive poetry which crackles with electricity. Z Dicks displays a masterful handling of language and fuses a richly lyrical voice with innovative almost experimental syntax and form. At time there's such vivid earthy and timeless imagery it brings to mind Seamus Heaney.’ - (Anna Saunders) ....‘Dicks’s poetry has the touch of the prophet about it. With an uncanny ability to look below the surface of our everyday world, this collection brings the reader uncomfortably, unsettlingly close to its sharp, hard edges. Twisting together the personal and the societal like brambles, it is impossible to know where the paths of these wonderful poems will lead: towards the broken, discordant chords of a ‘tangerine pink petrol dusk’ or with an expertly injected flash of lightness and humour. With its innovative use of spacing and challenging exploration of our natural world, this collection feels extremely necessary in our troubled times. It is a real must-read for all who question the distance we have put between ourselves and the spaces we live in, with writing that combines difficult questions with pleasure and light. In the words of the poet himself: ‘if he were here now, I’d pass him my banjo.’’ - (Ben Ray) .....‘The poems in Intimate Nature explore what makes us human, and what is still firmly animal about us, and how those two extremes are almost always closer than we think in our everyday lives. With striking imagery and fluid language, the raw material on every page is polished into a poetic gem. One to read and re-read, this collection will give you a new perspective each time you pick it up.’ - (Kate Garrett, poet & editor)