Reviewing in The Friday Poem, Maggie MacKay writes: ‘These are the sort of poems that Roger Robinson calls “empathy machines”.’ 
[In an interview with The Guardian in 2020, Robinson said “Poets can touch hearts and minds; they can translate trauma into something people can face. Sometimes there’s a cost for the poet to do that as it takes looking at the trauma right in the face and then allowing others to bear the idea of trauma safely. That’s why I write poetry. Poems are empathy machines.”]

‘Atkin creates imaginary landscapes, in which she evokes both the tragedy of our individual experiences of climate change and, in equal measure, our joy at being alive. A journey to Iceland during the Covid era forms the central part of the collection, and much emphasis is placed on the magnificence and power of icebergs, fjords and volcanoes, which here represent a combination of beauty and danger, as well as a symbol for how planet Earth has become destabilised. The poet’s own black and white photographs add a further dimension to the storytelling.’

To read the whole review, please click on the link below. My grateful thanks to reviewer and poet Maggie MacKay, and to all at The Friday Poem.