The Claims Office

The largely straightforward narrative in this remarkably assured debut poetry collection from a young Welsh poet is compellingly interlaced with often-elaborate and strange textures and imagery. The rich surface is undercut by a mix of rebellious energy and unflinching satire that manifests itself in nature poems that are often anti-nature—as in the darkly humorous “Narwhal”—in lively meditations on life in New York and London, and in skewed love poems (“Plans with the Unmet Wife”). Dai George’s pieces on his native Wales, such as the title poem, similarly display an edgy sarcasm, though intermixed with an elegiac tone; they display a deep suspicion of authority and a reluctance to conform to nationalist cliché. As a whole, this collection marks the emergence of a new, thoughtful, intriguing voice in British poetry.