“I needed to be more unturtley, less seaweed, more oats and rye.”

Tempest has forged her own voice, unlike anything else in the mainstream poetry world. The Independent

A poet confident in her mastery of the medium -- J.M. Coetzee

She has the comic's knack of placing a lot of weight on thin-shouldered words, words blurred by common currency which are suddenly brought into sharp focus and don't really want to be. Beyond the laughs there's great poignancy - Observer

While he is at rest, I am cursed still to live:- even Death loved him the best. - Adelaide Anne Procter 'Envy'

A frail, dead, new-born lamb, ghostly and pitiful and white a blot upon the night, the moon's dropped child! - Charlotte Mew, 'Fame'

Go to thy little senseless play; thou dost not heed my lay. - Joanna Baillie 'A Mother To Her Waking Infant'

Ah! why has happiness no second spring? Charlotte Smith

Adventurous, compelling and utterly original - The Times

And die of nothing but a rage to live

Syntactically complex, discursive, lyrically rich, yet threaded through with a demotic swagger - Gerard Woodward