Abegail Morley’s The Skin Diary confronts loss in its many forms with unwavering and astonishing clarity, an incandescent thread running through every line that makes each alive with fierce and steely energy.

Here are alert and lyrical poems that hunt out imperfect hiding places, conjure up imaginary sisters and try to contain near-impossible sorrows that spill out of carrier bags and fill up archives. New skins and old disguises are stitched together, the fabric of life tries to hold fast whilst all else unravels and comes apart at the seams. The Skin Diary documents the sometimes fragile and strange windfalls of our days and months; through hard times and thin ice, this journal is bleakly wry, brilliantly focused and brimming with uncanny and discomforting turns of event.

'...ghostly, visceral, and unflinching poems.’ – Penelope Shuttle

'The Skin Diary somehow finds words for the ineffable in its search for hope and understanding.’ – Martin Figura

'...here is a poet who can hold her nerve and her entire psychological landscape within each multifariously conceived and consciously humane line.’ – Melissa Lee-Houghton