True

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The poems collected here were stimulated by real-life stories encountered in a variety of media. They are not ‘found poems’. The real-life story has instead provided a launch point for the poem. Ciaran Carson christened them ‘discovered poems’. This collection brings together Paul's discovered poems and is dedicated to the late Ciaran Carson, founding Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre in Belfast.

Paul Jeffcutt proves himself to be a poet at ease with subjects that so many make a mess of. All the human condition, in its glorious difficulty, is here: the erotic, history, cancer, politics, and spirituality. But the making of these poems is his unshowy expertise with language. It is only a matter of time before he acquires the readership that poetry such as this ultimately insists on. - Kevin Higgins

Paul Jeffcutt’s poems represent a serious reckoning with the horrors and beauties of life, death and our shared common world. Stark, simple – but never less than complex. - Ian Sansom

Paul Jeffcutt’s poetry has always been tempted by the coincidental and the accidental, finding strange wonders in juxtaposition and enigma. With ‘True’, this risk-taking reaches a new stage of fluency, insight and daring. Along the pathways of these literally ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ poems, the big themes are explored, in the company of other artists, pioneers, adventurers and plain folk like ourselves. Throughout, the poems cling to perilous supports, delivering messages from this one fragile life across “a lucent tightrope of guile,/balance and pixie dust./On fire, but not burnt.” A joy to read. ―Damian Smyth