Self-Portrait in the Dark

The dark attunes our eyes to detail the light can sometimes conceal; similarly, Colette Bryce’s new poems are ‘slant tellings’ that reveal strange and true reflections. Using a wide range of imaginative strategies, Bryce examines the ways in which time is held, space enclosed – and a life framed and given meaning: a face in a broken mirror, a spider trapped under a glass, or a stolen kiss in a car-wash. Bryce’s two previous prize-winning collections were widely admired for their marvellously seductive music and their speed of thought; Self-Portrait in the Dark widens and deepens the poet’s scope, and is her most emotionally compelling collection to date. Praise for The Full Indian Rope Trick ‘[Bryce’s] poems, sensitive as the needle that registers some distant earth tremor, are delicately poised . . . Bryce’s vision is questing, disquieting, dark . . . as she seeks out the truths of life and love that transform the human heart. This is a confident, complex, subversive collection that shows us the magic by which one becomes a mature poet’ The Times