Sarah Holland-Batt's Aria, winner of the 2007 Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, is a striking debut. Like piano music heard through a high window, the language is haunting but entirely of this world. The poems are awake to the dark constellations of art and history, to what momentarily is, and to what flows endlessly on.

'Aria is one of the most exciting first books of poems I've read in years. The voice is assured, the syntax a live wire. These poems demand attention, and after many readings they are still working their magic. A first book over brimming with pure imagination and craft.' —Anthony Lawrence