Agate Head / Stone Soup

Bloomsbury presents Agate Head / Stone Soup, written and read by Patricia Lockwood.

'I'm always happy to go into her zany vortex' Lorde

'Anything by Patricia Lockwood is guaranteed to make me laugh out loud' Caro Claire Burke, author of Yesteryear
'A modern word witch' New York Times Book Review
The new collection(s) of poetry from Booker Prize finalist and 'voice of a generation' Patricia Lockwood

Many have called Patricia Lockwood a wordsmith, but in the latest iteration of her life, she has become, quite literally, a metalsmith too. Stones, gems, metals, fossils – she forges them into bodies, faces and, with her typical irreverence, vaginas.

In these poems, a robot dog discovers the Lascaux caves in France. Jane Austen shoots a perfect 147. A rock gets a girlfriend. The Pope blesses McLovin (kind of). Lockwood's most successful work of metal- and wordsmithing yet is her blend of the Internet world with the natural one, as she slips meme references and algospeak into evocations of geological time, explorations of organic bodies, and observations of youth.

Her most personal collection of poetry yet, you may find you understand yourself – and Patricia – more than you'd like to by the end.

'Lookwood has a modern comic sensibility like no one else ... you get swept up in the momentum of her wayward brain' The Times