SHORTLISTED FOR THE SEAMUS FIRST COLLECTION POETRY PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE ''Who knew that writing with this degree of care and pain and tact was still possible? For my money it''s the best first volume in decades, I would say since Tom Paulin''s A State of Justice (1977): no dead weight, foot-perfect and engaging.'' Michael Hofmann, Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year Crisis Actor chronicles various failures and farewellsIt is peopled by faded heroes and deferential devotees; a hanged donkey, a bloated rat; solitary bachelors and disillusioned youthsthese are the watchers, not the players. The poems are awash with rueful self-accusation and laconic scepticism. There are touching elegies, reportage and bruised, wary replayings. A blistering sequence about boxers and their fates weaves through the collection. The overwhelming sense is of life going on elsewhere, the halcyon days and brightest of years long past. This i