No Can Do

Julie O'Callaghan's new collection, No Can Do, ranges in tone from the poignant to the caustic and in subject-matter from the sublime to the hilarious. Games of executive whirlyball, betrayals by grandchildren with 'buzz-cut hair-dos', dilemmas about subscriptions to 'The Potato of the Month Club' - No Can Do is a collection which revels in investigating exactly 'How the Joint Works'. The book's riotous middle is ?anked by two contrasting sections, one of which brings a fresh subtlety to Julie O'Callaghan's celebrated use of monologues as she ventriloquises contemporary concerns through gently satiric and slyly erotic poems set in the court of Heian Japan. No Can Do ends with an affecting sequence of elegiac poems, shocking in its starkness, which will add to her reputation as a highly original and unpredictable poet. Poetry Book Society Recommendation.