Lessons for an Apprentice Eel Catcher

A pregnant woman encounters a hare on a moonlit night... Harry Houdini’s widow tries to contact him through a séance... The first woman in space transforms into a golden bird from Russian myth... In her debut collection of poetry, Alex Toms introduces us to a troupe of curious characters to explore themes of love, womanhood and sex. At the centre of this collection is the eel catcher, a shadowy figure who lives on the fringes of everyday experience. The eel catcher weaves willow traps, and tales of folklore and magic, to evoke an East Anglia inhabited by poachers, witches and ghosts. In her poems, Toms skilfully summons the uncanny, and out of it draws a slithering sense with which we are all familiar. Here are all the snares of life, and also perhaps, a spell that could set us free.