The Fox on the Roundabout

This is a gem – a new edition of Owen’s classic collection plus six new poems. It has been made the Poetry Book Society’s Children’s Poetry Bookshelf Choice and deservedly so. Owen has the gift of being able to step back into childhood without sentimentalising and forgetting what it was really like. There are poems about identity, betrayal, love and loss. He considers age and memory from new perspectives informed by childhood experience. The language he uses is rich, the lines are haunting and funny in equal measures making the poems multi-layered, to be read again and again. His poem ‘Gold’ is one of the best answers to that perennial question children ask poets: ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’

‘Knock the dirt off your spade, / Set out for the hills / And get to digging. / …Most days of course / All you come up with / Is a pile of broken stones. / But better stones, I say, / Than buckets full of air. / At least you can build yourself a cairn / To prove you once passed by.’