Amy Crutchfield

Balancing candour with restraint, the poems in Asterion – Amy Crutchfield’s first book since winning the Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry – examine the tensions that arise from incompatible impulses. These tensions are embodied in the figure of the Minotaur, a hybrid figure both human and monstrous, whose original name Asterion gives this collection its name. Written with a classical sensibility and a keen eye for the implications of common detail, Asterion is a work that resonates with love and longing; an appetite for knowledge and a disposition to wonder.

A powerful debut which interrogates the nature of love in all its various forms, The Cyprian confronts some of our primary questions about love: how is it possible to accept the death of the beloved? What role does deception play in love? When does love become a force of exploitation? The collection is composed of five parts, reflecting the different aspects of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty.