Intimates is a collection of entirely of new poems described by one reviewer as 'at once close to and distant from family, body and thought.' This response highlights not only the collection's subjects but also its manner - 'close to and distant from' summoning up the poems' negotiation between exposure and concealment. Often employing a first-person speaker, the emotional freight of the poems is sifted through non-metrical forms which are rigorous in terms of the attention paid to linguistic framings. For instance, in 'Look at These' the speaker performs an exposure, she does not merely expose. Conscious of potential transgressions, the poems nevertheless explore tensions between female embodiment and the poetic 'I'. In terms of research, the book feeds off a critical PhD thesis written alongside the poems. Chosen by three daily newspapers among their 'Books of the Year, 2005', Intimates won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, was short-listed for the T S Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. It was also favourably reviewed in The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Guardian, Poetry Review and TLS. Some of the poems were broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and recorded on the Oxfam CD, 'Lifelines'. RAE_import_type : Authored book RAE_uoa_type : English Language and Literature