Quicksand Beach

‘Bingham has the unusual ability to write convincingly and infectiously about happiness.’
Sunday Times

‘There’s something profoundly English about these intelligent, technically accomplished poems: understated, almost self-deprecating, but subtly rewarding.’
Financial Times

‘Kate Bingham's Quicksand Beach, shortlisted for the Forward prize, offers an urgent interrogation of the ways in which we love - as parents and children, husbands and wives. Her poems celebrate love's beauty and essentialness, but are clear-eyed about its realities: co-dependence, moments of ugliness, the fact its end is inherent in the moment of its inception. Her command of form is enviable and her grasp of subject-matter complete.’
Guardian

‘A revelation to me this year was the work of Kate Bingham, whose second collection, Quicksand Beach, shows a poet already in complete command of her voice and of her form. Spry, witty, gently cynical, her talking lyrics about love and domestic life are a pure pleasure to read; and she has a breathtakingly acute ear. I read most of a sestina without even noticing that it was a sestina. That's craft.’
The Telegraph

‘Little is wasted in these neat, unpretentious lyrics: language is held tight and under pressure while the narrative builds. Her competence with form allows sonnets to slip by almost unnoticed, while more experimental poems demonstrate her versatility.’
Mslexia