'Winner, Best First Book, IP Picks 2006. The Accidental Cage explores the perceptual and emotional experience of entrapment in its many forms. Exile, asylum, desire, love and motherhood all enter the speaker s imagination, often transformed by the force of resistance. The poems are nuanced, balancing a dramatic tension between the beauty of the metaphor and the impact of the meaning. The collection compiles longer meditations with shorter lyrical and imagistic poetry. This is an absorbing collection that weds classical metaphor and lyricism with contemporary voices and themes, while exploring a range of form. Essential for libraries and schools to widen their poetry collections.' (Publication summary)