The presence of the political in the everyday and its influence on language run throughout, especially in the concluding section, ‘The Unspeak Poems’. This ‘unspeaking’ is not refraining from speaking but speaking actions (and people) out of existence, the old game of changing the meanings of words to make ugliness more palatable. ‘Surgical Strike’ works through the implications of a common phrase, and ‘Acute Willingness’ looks at the death of a father and his two-year-old child, hidden behind the words ‘an acute willingness among insurgents to die’. The Unspeak Poems is at its strongest when engaged with the details of oppression and with the viewpoints of those who lack agency.

Less effective are the poems about poetry which tend to lapse into a victim–outsider pose: ‘Advice to an Emerging Poet’, for instance, and ‘Self-Portrait: The Poet in his Maturity’. Thorne’s humour is for the most part a strength, as in ‘Mondagreen: Wordsworth, Sonnet 33’, which amusingly mishears its victim. ‘Chaste Around the Cloisters’, by contrast, never rises above a succession of lame jokes, easy shots, and clichés.

This is a solid collection from an established poet. Its best poems are well worth the price of entry, and its anger and sympathy are timely.