Stephen Payne’s day job is in academic cognitive science. Currently Professor of Human-Centric Systems at the University of Bath, he’s always been fascinated by language and lyric. He began writing poetry to figure out how the poets he admired worked their tricks. Later, he took part in workshops in Linda Chase’s ‘Village Hall’ in Manchester and grasped the benefits of belonging to a community of poets, something he now enjoys in Bath, Cardiff and beyond.
In this, his first full collection, Payne’s two sides come together: between these pages scientist and poet meet and strike sparks. It’s no surprise to encounter poems that think, and think about thinking. They’re playful, provocative and lyrical, and the poet’s continuous pleasure in sound and pattern is curiously infectious.
