The Bone That Sang
(INDIGO DREAMS PUBLISHING)

Booker is like a modern-day Scheherazade, weaving tales that pull you in and transfix. . .
 
This poetry is beautifully crafted and spans so much. Sharp, spiked through with humour, and so cleverly written that it often takes you somewhere you don’t expect to go. That is what’s so fabulous about Booker’s poems – you can’t quite nail them . . .
 
You will return to these poems again and again, and each time they will reveal something new and unexpected. 
LONDON GRIP (Louise Warren)
Throughout this collection, memorable turns of phrase surprise and delight. In ‘View from the Gibralfaro, Malaga’ “burnt ochre crenellations / steam like washed horses”. In ‘Student Clinic’ Mrs Nkumbo’s hat is a “blazing sun / that never sets” and in ‘Baby Blue’ the name Scarlet O’Hara is ingeniously turned into a verb.
 
Variety is key in this collection of 27 poems where Booker breaks out of the domesticity of ‘little England’ to embrace subjects on an international scale  .
Out of these materials, Booker constructs challenging poems that are fired with surprising imagery and verbal dexterity. There is light and dark in equal measure here.
THE POET MAGAZINE (Neil Leadbeater)
This is a seriously good pamphlet. It has pride of place on my desk.
David Pollard
Claire Booker writes lyrical poems with compassion, allowing readers to construct the stories they tell. ‘The Bone That Sang’ is tender, wryly humoured and human in the treatment of its subjects . . .
 
In ‘Abdul Haroun Almost Medals at Dover’ she reimagines him as an Olympian who “dodges surveillance cameras as if they’re bullets – that’s been a useful training – then it’s a steady race along the track with the breath of family behind him.” A breathless race through a refugee’s journey, the short vowels and double consonants create a sense of urgency. Readers discover there’s “no podium for Haroun . . . The poem’s light touch belies its subject matter: the sacrifices made to make it to England . . .
 
Two personal poems involve Amma-ji (a note explains this means dearest mother/mother-in-law). In ‘Life Support’, Amma-ji and the narrator watch nature programmes together,
 
“The emperor penguin on his egg: if it broke we’d watch him warm a smooth, round rock instead.
Now they tell us you’ve been dead all week –
 
that your lips twitch from intubation,
your fingers grip mine out of primitive habit.
 
I tell them: go, let me incubate my rock.
EMMA LEE’S BLOG
Acute social observation brim over in Claire Booker’s ‘The Bone That Sang’. Here is a poet concerned with social injustice and individual hurt . . .
 
Her subject matter is extensive and intense. The plight of the would-be asylum seeker, the violence of a child in poverty, a homeless man swept up into a bin wagon . . . These poems announce a lyrically indignant voice. In spite of her unflinching eye, in the face of cruelty, Booker very much cares.
 
‘The Bone That Sang’ is tightly packed with intelligent, startling and rigorous imagery to make you read on.
​A terrific pamphlet.
THE HIGH WINDOW (Alan Price)
Bold, inventive, metaphorically rich . . . Here is poetry that challenges head and heart, and leaves an astonishing array of ideas and imagery playing in the mind . . . assured choices in form, tone and language never fail to move or pack a punch.
 
Fine evocation of place and mood in the beautiful ‘Nightfall at Skiathos Harbour’ and View from the Gibralfaro, Malaga’ usher in moving expressions of love for the dead.
 
Gentle lilting rhythms build to crescendo in ‘Amma-ji Goes on Haj’, a dying mother-in-law’s final spiritual journey:
 
‘We only know that she is far
on her night journey, tiptoeing up each star
in her white sari, ever closer to the Scorpion’s sting.
 
She, who knew only four walls, will dive in the ten directions.
She, who knew the name of fifth cousins,
will know only one name –
 
the Kab’ah finally within fingers reach.’ 
DREAMCATCHER (Jane Maker)
I absolutely love these poems. Powerful thoughts and ideas presented in very striking and imaginative ways. Beautiful.
Dawn Gorman (The Poetry Place)
Claire Booker’s second pamphlet has an indefatigable spirit . . . The poems reveal a tender humanity and have an unflagging energy.
 
The political nature of many of these poems refuses to let the reader off the hook, but Booker’s fine sense of tone and craft means we are happy to be left wriggling . . . Her control of the line and image ensure ‘that bones sing when they find a ready ear.’
Lisa Kelly
It was lovely to dive into your pamphlet – so many wonderful stories and characters to enjoy!
Isabel Kenyon
You have a remarkable way with words. So captivating. If I had to choose just one favourite poem, it would have to be ‘At Risk Child’. That poem speaks to me of 21st century attitudes to ‘want’ and responsbility’ or lack thereof.
Rachael Joseph
Claire Booker