The Secret

"The Secret" is a book of mystery and magic. Opening on familiar ground - retelling stories from the Bible, Celtic mythology, small-town rumours and urban mythologies - it gradually moves beyond its borders to narratives of Central America, drawing on figures such as the Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortes, and the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo. In this unusually innovative first collection, Zoe Brigley considers many secrets - between man and woman, mother and daughter, teacher and pupil, rich and poor, North and South, familiar and strange. Using a large variety of poetic forms, her writing oscillates between global languages and minor ways of speaking. The book is split into three sections that spiral further away from ideas of home towards the discovery of gifts in other cultures.