These acutely observed and atmospheric poems by Polly Atkin in her new pamphlet, Shadow Dispatches, from Seren press, offer us a slant perspective on everyday things and events...These atmospheric and keenly observational poems offer us a slant perspective on everyday things and events: the ugliness of an elderly mute swan; or a group of migraine sufferers forming a fellowship and holding regular meetings. Poems addressing the complexity of contemporary relationships sit alongside those riffing on traditional themes, even - in the case of 'Hermes Enodios' and 'Potnia Theron' - revisiting classical gods. These are poems embedded in particular landscapes, in which the real becomes surreal and vice versa. Together they form a poetry which is deeply involved with the natural world - concerned with deer in fields and jays in woods - but which is not in any way removed, encompassing email, photo-shop, and fighter jets.