The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions - Tapa blanda

'The eternal triangle of childhood, sex, and death doesn't make for happiness, but if memory is indeed the mother of the muses, then it furnishes a rich and haunted house. In Jacqueline Saphra's case the house is full of energy - even at its darkest it remains light and brisk on its feet. Her ear is sharp and her eye sharper still. The heart aches, the shoulders shrug but the feet dance.' - George Szirtes 'Jacqueline Saphra's poems are simultaneously as searing, sexy, funny and cleansing as any poems on earth - she has the gift of the sifter mixed with the power of the big sharp knife! Do not miss these savory pleasures.' - Naomi Shihab Nye 'A strikingly confident first collection, notable both for its formal skills, and for the poet's ability to explore challenging and complex relationships in memorable and agile language. Here is a poet of the world and not of the ivory tower. Fiercely intelligent; a remarkable debut.' - Penelope Shuttle

A man claims ambush and assault by women's underwear, Houdini's diametrically opposed counterpart waits taped and shackled for her man to save her, and girly-weak is not an option. Described as a poet of the world, Jacqueline Saphra's work dances between the personal and the profound to offer a striking vision of growing up and growing older, mothers and motherhood, femininity and gender relations, all framed against the backdrop of a modern world, itself subject to growing pains. The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions is her debut full collection.