Days Like These by Brian Bilston; A Little Resurrection by Selina Nwulu; England’s Green by Zaffar Kunial; After Sylvia, edited by Ian Humphreys and Sarah Corbett; Journeys Across Breath by Stephen Watts
Days Like These: An Alternative Guide to the Year in 366 Poems by Brian Bilston (Picador, £16.99)
The poem-a-day format of poetry publishing is ripe for subversion. One suspects the tongue of the “poet laureate of Twitter” is in his cheek when celebrating such wildly various historic occasions as Charles I’s execution, Dylan going electric and … Bilston finding one of his books in a charity shop. He succeeds when he describes the specific in the mundane, such as on TV: “I used to believe that the tiny people in the magic box / were watching me as I watched them – / looking out at somebody else inside a tiny box”.
A Little Resurrection by Selina Nwulu (Bloomsbury, £9.99)
“I’ve been an angel before. No big deal, but it’s true.” From the off, the first collection by a former young poet laureate for London grabs the attention. Ranging across poems dealing with deportation and repatriation, trying to find a home between cultures, and charting the impact of this on Black bodies, Nwulu’s voice is direct and disarming, powered by a quiet anger. She is particularly good at illuminating the eddies of grief, thanks to her ability to freeze-frame decisive moments. When her father dies in hospital, there are “scattered around him, debris of a quiet bomb”. A compelling debut.