Patten came out of the Liverpool poetry scene of the 1960s, full of intimacy, ambition, and the troubles of youth.

The strongest pieces work through image and voice rather than grand statement. Shadows become companions and witnesses; memory is something bodily and unreliable; private grief sits beside satire about media culture, commercialisation and literary life. There’s a looseness to Patten’s line that makes the poems feel conversational, but beneath it is a persistent unease — the sense that affection, identity and recollection are all slightly unstable materials. The result is approachable poetry with a darker undertow, moving between tenderness, irony and quiet disillusionment without needing to posture about any of it.

Unwin Hyman, London, 1988. First edition. Paperback. Light shelf wear and rubbing to covers, with minor edge and corner wear. Internally clean and unmarked; binding firm. Very good condition.