Egg of Zero

The zero at the heart of these poems is not nothing - not simply absence, forgetting or loss, though there are moving elegies among them. This is a not-quite-definable zero that gives surprising edge to life and language round it. Direct, meditative, playful, hyper-alert, Philip Gross's distinctively wide range of tones work together in a subtle, searching new collection that addresses both the mind and heart. 'Nature, people, the obscurities of one's self, yield up their otherness in those epiphanic moments when Gross' peripheral eyesight catches them off guard. His is a voice that is mordant, obsessive, compelling - but nonetheless grateful for the rewards of living' - "PBS Bulletin". 'Philip Gross knows how to make silence and suggestion resonate...he touches an alien, intractable dimension...Gross's poems are about lost bearings and blurred frontiers' - Terry Eagleton, "Independent on Sunday". 'He should be recognised as one of England's very best poets, not only for the exuberance of his imagination, but because of what he is writing about' - John Greening, "Times Literary Supplement". 'Many of the poems convey a deep awareness of this fragility and downright improbability that forms the core of our lives...[enabling] us better to treasure our "ordinary" moments - the taken-for granted, charted ground' - Kate Keogan, "Acumen".