The Toll

An escaped lion roams the streets of Essex;
a lonely pensioner holds a tower block fete; ,brand a young woman dreams of leaving home.

Travel the unfashionable A-roads and commuter lines of England -''where industry meets marsh''- with poet Luke Wright. In his stunning new collection, discover a country riven by inequality and corruption but sustained by a surreal, gallow''s humour. The Toll combines the elegaic with the anarchic, placing uproarious satire cheek-by-jowl with wild experiments in form and touching poems of parenthood.

In this mature follow-up to his best-selling debut, Mondeo Man, Wright captures the strain of austerity Britain, speaking truth to power and registering the toll it takes on us all.