‘In The Fire Station Sarah Barnsley fearlessly explores childhood dramas – a grilled budgie, a car that ‘lollops’ into ditches – and invites the reader into an exuberant dreamscape where “We kayak to the supermarket.”
Always crisply original and often painfully funny, these explorations of startling, off-beat characters and creatures resonate with surreal, luminous, exquisite images. This is a startling debut from a poet whose voice is as unusual as it is assured.’- Catherine Smith
‘These poems have a humour and exuberance that resonates after the pamphlet has been finished.’- Emma Lee
‘[The] poems that make up The Fire Station have […] force – movement – […] necessity. They rattle down the page with urgency.’ – Charlotte Gann, Sphinx Review
‘Bold and strange, it sees the potential for a blaze, or other disaster in pretty much everything […] [Barnsley is] consistently good at displacing the reader, “rehousing” us in a peculiar landscape […] Her voice is wry, considered and convincing.’ – Penny Boxall, Sabotage Reviews
‘This is a gem of a pamphlet. The poems are beautifully written, sometimes surreal, always assured and demanding of full attention […] Very highly recommended.’ – Janet Sutherland, The Frogmore Papers
‘The tension between upbringing and education fizzes throughout this pamphlet […] The Fire Station is an intriguing pamphlet that knows exactly what it’s doing and executes its aims with clarity and skill.’ – Matthew Stewart, Rogue Strands
‘[T]he pamphlet is quick and easy to read, though one should not read too fast: the text has undoubted layers and depth.’ – Helena Nelson, Sphinx Review
‘Poignantly funny […] Brilliant!’ – Peter Raynard, in Proletarian Poetry, on ‘O Pioneers! (after Willa Cather)’
‘[A] startling example. [The] extended metaphor is so powerful’ – Val McDermid, in Mslexia, on ‘Slow Ships’
September 26 2015, ISBN 978-0-9928555-3-6
The Fire Station, £4 plus 50p postage (UK)
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