In her first full-length poetry collection, Date Show, Jane Bonnyman takes a delicious dive into ‘This Dating Malarkey’, as one poem title puts it. Each poem builds a cast of characters from Just a Dude to Storm-Lover to Joe Cool to name a few, and even Gatsby shows up. The search for the fairytale romance is arduous, heart-breaking, and hilarious as a candle-lit dinner, where the author writes, “I lean towards you and set fire to my hair.” The writing is artful, the lines brimming with surprising sounds and sense. The real transforms into the surreal during these “years of fails and fiascos” with those who would rather “go bungee-jumping into the abyss” or take “an eternal hike up the Lonely Mountain.” Date Show is a cinematic experience. I loved reading this book. —Susan Browne, author of Monster Mash (Four Way Books, New York)

Jane Bonnyman’s Date Show offers us a litany of dating disasters. There is the chance meeting with an ex while stuck in an airport queue, and the Zoom date with lighting problems. Against all the daftness the world gives us when we hold out our hearts, the poems offer a complete mastery of tone, a beautifully raised eyebrow, and a sense of the huge tenderness real love can bring, if we can just get through the nightmare. The collection is a compelling argument for the continued importance of poetry in an age of swiping right, and it’s ages since I’ve read a group of poems which were so thoroughly enjoyable. The book confirms Jane Bonnyman as one of the most exciting new voices in British poetry. Read it! —Jonathan Edwards, author of My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren)