A playful, philosophical collection that finds wonder in the everyday and the absurd

Kant and marmalade, a solemn talk with a lift, an existential struggle with something from IKEA, an absurdist discussion of meaning in poetry, or a disquisition on the nature of windows: Robin Thomas is a poet of high imagination, always looking for the unusual angle and finding it over and over in this, his latest collection.

Giant Crabs and Spiders ranges across philosophy, painting, music, literature, politics, history, science, and what it’s like to be alive. The poet explores knowledge, ethics, meaning, mortality, and writes of loss and grief. Bubbling away through these intense, sometimes quirky, always compassionate poems is a joy in language, its musical resources and endless possibilities.