Neil Richards’ writing is immensely likeable, with the clarity of proverb and the earthy humour of speech. Though never insistent, these are poems of true assurance: ‘The river knows where it’s going.’
Alison Brackenbury
Images of water recur in this beautiful collection, in which Neil Richards reaches into the depths to retrieve charged elemental poems that touch on myth, religion, and loss in exact and delicate language.
Ben Parker
Whether he is writing about Noah ‘discreetly sewing souls into ants’, Narcissus as he ‘punctures the water with his tongue and drinks from himself’, the Minotaur laying out the labyrinth, or even a man turning into an apple tree sprouting, Neil Richards’ poems offer the reader a glimpse into a strange and compelling new world. These perfectly wrought poems are mesmeric, haunting, and fiercely original. Wings Made from the Muscle of a River introduces the work of an electrifying new voice in poetry.
Anna Saunders
Neil Richards’ writing is immensely likeable, with the clarity of proverb and the earthy humour of speech. Though never insistent, these are poems of true assurance: ‘The river knows where it’s going.’
Alison Brackenbury
Images of water recur in this beautiful collection, in which Neil Richards reaches into the depths to retrieve charged elemental poems that touch on myth, religion, and loss in exact and delicate language.
Ben Parker
Whether he is writing about Noah ‘discreetly sewing souls into ants’, Narcissus as he ‘punctures the water with his tongue and drinks from himself’, the Minotaur laying out the labyrinth, or even a man turning into an apple tree sprouting, Neil Richards’ poems offer the reader a glimpse into a strange and compelling new world. These perfectly wrought poems are mesmeric, haunting, and fiercely original. Wings Made from the Muscle of a River introduces the work of an electrifying new voice in poetry.
Anna Saunders