The World's Two Smallest Humans

The finely tuned poems in Julia Copus's new collection are the fruit of an upbringing in a musical family, an affinity with the Classics, a fascination with the arc of time, and an unflinching scrutiny of love and personal relationships.

Born out of a powerful sense of place, the poems navigate a sequence of interior and exterior landscapes, whether revisiting Ovid, negotiating the perils of one composer's attempt to step into the shoes of another or describing, from shifting perspectives, a young girl's escape from suburban ennui.

Breathing life into loss, the book concludes with 'Ghost', a moving arrangement of pieces that explore the author's experience of IVF: poems written with wry humour and with grace, which celebrate the mysteries of conception alongside the sometimes surreal business of medical intervention.