The Wind Dog

The 'wind dog' is a broken rainbow, but, in the title poem of Tom Paulin's sixth collection, it provides this most agile of poets with a perfect bridge into childhood and its 'lingo-jingo of beginnings'. The poem is a gloriously singing meditation on the life of the ear – 'the only true reader' – and the meaning and music of both words and pre-verbal sounds are a recurring theme in this rich, cogent and prosodically adventurous volume.