The Agonist
by Shastra Deo

‘Grounded in the body and its pain, Deo’s stunning poems move beyond the merely philosophical. The agonists of this book – bodies damaged by conflict or ideology, love or loss – are viscerally and exquisitely real.’

‘Precise, incisive and surreal, Shastra Deo’s poems govern the space between beauty and terror. Without doubt, a remarkable new voice has arrived.’

‘Full of the beautiful music of fracture and repair … Exhilarating in its risk and energy, surprising in its evocations and work with form, this is a distinctive collection.’

‘The Agonist exists somewhere between a haunted forest and a dissecting bench, demonstrating that the realities of the physical body are just as strange (and terrifying) as anything in fable or myth. At once tender and forensic, Shastra Deo’s poems ask what it means to inhabit a body which collects its own souvenirs of experience, and from which it is impossible to gain reprieve. This is a poetry of blood, smoke and communion – where one is as likely to encounter a boxer’s knuckles as the velvet of antlers; where tiny fish swimming in the lungs of the drowned are as present as a lover’s hands. A striking and memorable debut.’