Description

**WINNER OF THE T S ELIOT PRIZE FOR POETRY 2022**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR POETRY 2022**
**LONGLISTED FOR THE OCM BOCAS PRIZE 2023**

With Sonnets for Albert, Anthony Joseph returns to the autobiographical material explored in his earlier collection Bird Head Son. In this follow-up, he weighs the impact of being the son of an absent, or mostly absent, father, Though these poems threaten to break under the weight of their emotions, they are always masterfully poised as the stylish man they depict.

Publisher Review

After much silence and absence in life, the poet's father is painstakingly restored in death in a book-length "calypso sonnet" sequence ... Sonnets for Albert movingly makes peace with his shade * Guardian * A luminous collection which celebrates humanity in all its contradictions and breathes new life into this enduring form -- T S Eliot Prize for Poetry 2023 judges Praise for Anthony Joseph: "Possessing or possessed by requisite bearings, language and lore, Anthony Joseph is fully and beautifully up to the task -- Nathaniel Mackey An exceptional talent -- Blake Morrison