Mike Stocks's sonnets range across the messy landscape of human behaviour, pinpointing the fault lines in a direct and striking language. Whether dealing in sly humour, savage loss, or all the tragi-comic states in-between, he invariably finds a perspective that commands the attention.

The poems in Folly, with their assured technique and memorable content, demonstrate that the sonnet is a radical and contemporary form, and constitute a debut collection that readers will remember and revisit.

'A poet of power and skill.' Gerry Cambridge

'A book to be relished for its unexpectedness.' Edwin Morgan

'I regard Dick Davis’ Baucis and Philemon as the great sonnet of my generation, and I hope that in Stocks we are seeing Davis’ worthy heir in the making.' Timothy Murphy

'Stocks really can do it, and this book, entirely comprising sonnets, is the proof.' Helena Nelson

'Physically vivid, inventive, but controlled by manners of line, breath, cadence and rhyme.' George Szirtes

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