The Breakfast Machine

Inside this collection, a chicken on squeaky tin legs is cooking you eggs and a squirrel plays tape-recorded birdsong high up in a tree. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse high-tail it into town as cowboys, and the fate of the world is decided by a game of cards. The Breakfast Machine is driven by the transformations of fairytale where the dark corners of childhood are explored and found to be alive and well in offices, kitchens, and hen-houses. There is more than a hint of East European darkness in Helen Ivory's third collection, which sits more comfortably alongside the animations of Jan Svankmajer than any English poetic tradition.