Yield

• Born from the poet’s own experience this collection charts the journey, from a mother’s perspective, of the transition of her younger child from boy to girl
• A powerful blend of poetic and narrative art from an accomplished storyteller
• Three senses of the word ‘yield’ underpin the poetry: to bring forth, to give way, and to gain something valuable

‘The actual things of the world are everywhere in Claire Dyer’s Yield – thick socks, Glenfiddich, bathrobes, Swarfega, Swedish Meatball Wraps – and in the spaces between move families, friends, lovers, their interrelations astutely picked out as the unsaid is made solid. But such rooted settings don’t prevent flight. Any poet who can end a poem with the lines “the bones in its spine small white discs of” or “Fuck the gob-lin. Rock it” has earned the right to our attention.’ ~ Matthew Caley

‘There is so much that is uncompromising in Claire Dyer’s poems: the cruel precision of each word, line and image, and the sharply perfect intelligence of every metaphor and conceit. And yet Yield is a warm embrace of a book. A chronicle of love, generosity and ethics, Yield is a restorative piece of writing – a solace.’ ~ Kathryn Maris

‘Claire Dyer’s deft use of form comes into its own in the understated poems of Yield, at once lyrical, subtle, oblique, risky, suggestive and heart-wrenching. I can’t think of any other contemporary poet who could deal so tenderly with the wondrous yet traumatic gender change of one of her children.’ ~ Rosie Jackson

‘this painful, beautiful book’ ~ Louisa Campbell