"One of our most promising young talents, Jay Bernard writes powerful and sensuous scenes from the metropolis: a teenager flies like a moth, a woman with scissors sings bees. Disturbing, joyous and always surprising.” – Pascale Petit.

Haunting, hilarious, exquisitely inventive - Mark Ford

I'm drawn to what you might think of as traditional lyric poetry; it's an enduring, effective, powerful means of expression.

The Laureate of Gloucestershire

An engraver in short, sharp slashes that go deep. Andrew Salkey

Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure. Mark Strand

My father could only sign/His name, but he'd look at blueprints/& say how many bricks/ Formed each wall - My Father's Letters, Yusef Komunyakaa

The blood jet is poetry,/ There is no stopping it. - 'Kindness', Sylvia Plath (written 1st February 1963)

Robert Minhinnick is the leading Welsh poet of his generation. - The Sunday Times

Come close the flower says and we come close, / close enough to lift, cup and smell the rose - 'Come Close', Mimi Khalvati

A writer is not interested in explaining reality; he's interested in capturing it. - Brendan Kennelly

My poems are the product of a relationship between a side of my mind which is conscious, alert, educated and manipulative, and a side which is as murky as a primaeval swamp. - Andrew Motion