Jigsaw

'For we are all of the dust of stars, reborn hunter and hunted, to soar splay-winged across the moon or shadow the lonely light of angler fish.' The final lines from the opening poem in Jigsaw, David Underdown's third Cinnamon collection, hint at what is to follow, poems that range from the cosmic to the domestic, but all characterised by acute observation. The reader will also find a sense of the surreal and, above all, an empathy and relish for the many oddities and poignancies of existence. The book concludes with a sequence of poems dedicated to 'the grandfather I never knew'.

Jigsaw, David Underdown's delightful and diverse new collection, comes together to offer fresh ways of looking at the world, always sane and at the same time quietly transcendent.

"Whether reflecting on an encounter in the natural world or on significant moments in the story of a human life, attention is given to those small things that turn out after all to matter most. With a light step, he approaches the delicate wreck of a robin, follows a treecreeper's hunt for bugs, imagines what might go on inside the head of a tawny owl. He knows how to come closer than one might have imagined possible, and also how to admit to barriers that cannot be crossed; knowing and not knowing sit side by side.

Wordplay and understated humour enliven many of the poems, and the final section is a tender tribute to 'ordinary', but never really ordinary, lives. The jigsaw brings together darkness and light, questioning and consolation, the large-scale dangers of these Anthropocene times, and honour the courage it takes to look ordinary life in the eye."

- Alex Josephy