yphoid August’s poems struggle both with forms of power and with the ability of form to apprehend power in verse. Fractured language examines themes of fidelity, grief and control with philosophical and linguistic acuity. Ambitious in its scope, this sequence of poems finds abjection in unlikely places and forces the reader to place themselves in relation to their violent vision.

These are arresting, often uncomfortable poems which explore the intersections of physicality, violence and disgust. These poems never allow the reader to rest easy, they ask us to interrogate our most shameful thoughts, and through witty surrealism ask us to look afresh at everyday encounters. — Andrew McMillan

Walking the knife-edge between disclosure and mystery, Typhoid August captures the inner life as much as the outer… Fletcher’s work is astute on love, transgression and rejection even while in free-fall; a narrative voice which is wounded, even in shock, but fully alive. A concise but complex sequence that hints at a novel’s worth of emotional fall-out and condenses it into sixteen poems … The associative leaps, imagistic intensity and wordplay are heart-rendingly focused. – Luke Kennard