'Rachael Mead’s new poetry collection The Flaw in the Pattern continues her important work of watching and speaking through the focal point of the self in the world – in particular, the natural world of place and light and senses and the tracking of our human movement through it. This is the work of a highly skilled and perceptive poet taking charge of her craft: separately these poems offer a range of engaging and challenging windows onto human experience; together they provide a fast-flowing meditation not only on a life in process but the reflective and shaping business of poetry itself. Highly ommended in the Dorothy Hewitt Award for an unpublished manuscript, this collection is now part of UWAP’s ever-expanding poetry series.' (Introduction)