Outlandish

Jo Clement's first collection confronts Romantic impressions of British Gypsy or Roma ethnicity and lyrically lays them to rest. From Wordsworth to TV's Top Gear, her poems invite us to consider notions of otherness, trespass, and craft. She steps between ancient stopping places and mardy council estates to trill elegiac Romanes, English, and birdsong about witches, wild camping, and Silver Cross prams. Compelled by a brutal Roma diasporic legacy, Outlandish tenderly praises the poem-as-protest and illuminates a hidden and threatened culture.