The Ambulance Box

Shortlisted for The Seamus Heaney Centre Prize and The Aldeburgh First Collection PrizeThe Ambulance Box heralds the arrival of a strong and passionate new voice. Striking a fine balance between thought and feeling, Andrew Philip's poetry is by turns lyrical, allusive and direct; subtly experimental and unafraid of traditional form. Above all, it is intense, tender, inquisitive writing, alive to the wonder as well as the hurt of the world we inhabit.


At the heart of this book - dedicated to Philip's first child, who died shortly after birth - is a deeply moving exploration of loss and discovery. In poems of unsentimental and unsettling beauty, The Ambulance Box examines the sudden transformations of grief.


Nonetheless, this is a wide-ranging volume and not without a sense of playfulness. A central sequence of poems, written to accompany an exhibition by award-winning Scottish painter David Martin, recasts John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" as a contemporary journey through faith and doubt, certainty and ambiguity. Environmental concerns are wrapped up in a mathematical meditation or a tribute to the music of Olivier Messiaen. The great German poet Rainer Maria Rilke is claimed for Philip's home nation in several fine Scots translations, including the stunning "Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes."


This is poetry that will draw you back with its music, its mystery and its power.