Luxe

by Amy Key

Luxe is a magnificent spree in a bric-a-brac shop. A haul of pre-loved and glittering objets - pralines in a crystal bowl, a handful of tame ladybirds, a portrait in vinyl and cola-cubes - are artfully displayed on the poems' shelves to represent the conflicts and connections of a fabulous circle of friends and lovers, those real, remembered and imagined.

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2013

About the author

Amy Key is a poet and writer based in London. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Luxe and Isn't Forever, which was a Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice and a Book of the Year in the Guardian, New Statesman and The Times. Her poems have been widely published and anthologised, and her essays have appeared in At the Pond, Granta, the Poetry Review and elsewhere.

Reviews

[⏺ · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit hit and miss, and also a bit of its time. Some of the poems read a bit as nonsense, which is fine and has its place, but is not very memorable in the long run.

[D.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

If we are living in the material world, I want Amy Key to be my material girl. She makes her pleats and flounces move; she crowds the surface with colour and texture right where it needs to be to draw the reader in, like a bee to the velvet bell of the foxglove; or, like the silverscreen beauty who eats bonbons from a satin box, she wills our gaze to take it all in and to crave more. These poems are worn on the body, and like all great ensembles, they show just enough; they are hot and memorable.