Light Airs confirms Mick Evans as an exceptional poet whose linguistic dexterity in making every phrase work on multiple levels is matched by his impressive range of references. Whether the metaphors are of love or change, hubris or the banality of evil, the control and voice is always unerring, the precision always honed and intelligent. There are poems here that will chill and unsettle the reader and poems of exquisite tenderness. What unites them is there is never a complacent, sentimental or glib word. These are poems of depth and passion threaded with humane humour. Pushing at the boundaries of form, Light Airs is an inventive, honest and distinctive collection that will resonate long after reading.

Four emerging poets namely Mick Evans, Liz Hayward, Sharon Larkin and Vivienne Tregenza present ten poems each, and come together with a range of fifteen other individual new voices from the Cinnamon Press Debut Poetry Collection Competition. -- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru

When accomplished poet, Mick Evans, turns his attention to prose, we might know that what we will be reading will be surprising, original and brimming with humanity. Short Cuts might have been written with a dagger masquerading as a pen or pen wrestling with its dagger within. The result is intense, immersive and lyrical. These extraordinary pieces explore a landscape of extreme emotion that might, at first sight, appear to come from a chaotic imagination, but which soon reveal an acute intelligence and quick wit at work across the range of human feeling. The granular attention to human flaws and quirks, observed with as much compassion as honesty, and written with such inventiveness and style makes Short Cuts a compelling and unmissable collection.

Through the figure of Punch, Burlesque explores themes of identity and the roles imposed on us through circumstance and conditioning. The figure of Punch stands as an icon, the 'paradigm and picture of the age', challenging conventions of how and what we see and feel. The second part examines the way creativity shapes our view of ourselves, the masks we wear, often unconsciously, and how we strive to come to terms with the human condition. Wry humour and irony in the face of suffering and mortality are threads, as well as moments of compassion.