“Olds writes “poetry more faithful to the felt truth of reality than any prose could be.” – Richard Wakefield.

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

pared-down precision and scorching intensity - Helen Dunmore

Beautiful Girls is not a book for the faint-hearted: it will survive as testament to poetry's force in overcoming - Chris McCabe

Not every man has gentians in his house in Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas. - D.H. Lawrence 'Bavarian Gentians'

Poetry so unsettling, describing worlds so troubling and lonely, is seldom as funny, clever, and downright charming as Jane Yeh's. - Aingeal Clare

His poetry is what all poetry should be, the surprising and beautiful organisation of things that life has disorganised. John Fuller

The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read, we shall never come to the end of our story-book.

'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight' Christopher Marlowe, 'Hero and Leander'