Devour Everything - Sarah Stewart

Devour Everything is a love letter to heroic failure, to creation in the face of destruction, to the mundane made sacred. Ranging from New York to small-town Aberdeenshire, from pop culture to Norse Valkyries, and wrestling with issues of motherhood, memory and loss, Sarah Stewart's deftly illuminating debut collection reminds us that as humans "we are animals / and our bodies remember things." Sumptuous, lyrical, and downright gorgeous throughout, 'Devour Everything' lives up to its title with gusto in its almost militant devotion to beauty. - Jane McKie 'Devour Everything' slides between worlds, crossing and recrossing the slippery borders between reality and illusion, past and present, memory and loss. Sharply observed, playful but deeply serious, these are poems that unsettle all our certainties. - Helen Tookey Sarah Stewart's close attention to the 'thrum of normality' often reveals the fragility within it, giving us poems poised at an edge, tingling with threat. The result is a finely tuned recital of human interactions, where we come to understand that life's encounters can be small but devastating. - Rebecca Goss