The Adjustments

'Claire Dyer's new collection is that rare thing: a genuinely adult articulation of human frailty and those day-to-day complications of love and family life, with which we make our accord through the adjustments of its title. This is a crucial, though all too rarely achieved form of the lyric, impressive in its receptivity to a poetry quickened by detail and emotional intelligence. Relationships, alternative outcomes, happiness and what was lost along the way are each chronicled by a sensibility poetically alive to the quiet phenomenologies, detail and nuanced emotions of a hard-won maturity. We should enjoy and be grateful for the like' ~ Martin Malone; 'In this intensely moving collection, Dyer explores the vicissitudes of love as mother, daughter, sister and wife. Her poems combine tenderness with fearlessness and a hard-earned wisdom. Her language is precise, her imagination is daring and her insights as light-footed as they are profound' ~ Jane Clarke; 'Claire Dyer's The Adjustments is steeped in the human heart and examines with clarity what it means to be truly alive, and a witness to loss and bereavement. Even when contemplating the challenge of letting a loved one go, these poems remain defiantly grateful and appreciative of a life lived gently, passionately and with great tenderness. This collection is ultimately a song of praise' ~ Sharon Black