Sleeping with Rivers

The manuscript that kept sifting to the top, Sleeping with Rivers by Cath Drake, is simply full of gorgeous poems. Drake has a tendency to a longer line, a discursive manner, a narrative depth.I started to love these poems from the very first line of the first poem, 'Every morning she wakes up with rivers - ' Drake's tone is beautifully sensitive to the rhythms of language: knows when to pull back, when to unfurl startling imagery. There are artful poems about a childhood in Australia and poems involving the education of the female protagonist/poet. In one poem, a teacher, a 'spineless' Mr Jacob, suffers a fitting destiny and in another long, strange and hilarious poem, a duck haunts the protagonist like a persistent nightmare. There is a quietly devastating wit at work. - Amy Wack, Poetry Editor of Seren books and judge of the Mslexia pamphlet prize.