Liz Lefroy

"It really is a wonderful book, and so clever and original in how you've structured and edited / formatted it - it totally captures the energy of - and love for - the festival!" 

Shauna Darling Robertson

 

"The whole book is an expression of love and warmth."

Pauline Prior-Pitt

 

"Completely gorgeous!"

Jonathan Edwards

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"No boring bits, no loose ends, beautiful connections and structure, so much intelligence at work."

Paul Francis

 

"The anthology is wonderful!"

Adam Horovitz

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"I have spent a happy couple of evenings reading through -- what a gorgeous production! I Iove the way it has been structured, and the variety of the poems and poets makes it a fantastic read."

Tess Jolly

 

 

 

 

"This collection of poems is almost as much about Vienna as it is about Beethoven. By recognising that Beethoven was moulded by the city in which he spent his entire adult life, Liz Lefroy not only manages to avoid the many cliches about Beethoven, but succeeds in creating a truer reflection of him in her poetry."

John Suchet 

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"A travelogue in time, place, and music, the three are plaited together with personal history, dialogue and anecdotes: a trip to Vienna by mother and son to pay homage to Beethoven. And the reader is invited along ...

  

"Towards the end of the trip, the son is introduced to a jazz club. In similar format to a precursor, ‘JAZZLAND’ scatters itself (or should that be ‘scats’ itself) over the page to emulate the randomness of improvisation: ‘music . . . stretched and plied like toffee’ . . . ‘like flights of starlings.’ The guitarist ‘leaves us with his smile’. And the smile is contagious.    Enjoy the journey, the company, and the music."

Lynne Taylor, writing in Orbis Sept. 2021

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"It offers snippets ... always accompanied by a feeling that (like the best radio presenters) Lefroy is engaged in a one-to-one chat with the person who’s reading her book. This effect is achieved via the presence of a fluidity and a supple cadence in each sentence, Lefroy’s excellent poetic ear underpinning every entry to such an extent that I’m tempted to label them implicit prose poems."

Matthew Stewart in Rogue Strands

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"When I had my first jab on Saturday I was immaculately equipped with [I Buy A New Washer]. The thirty minutes I spent queuing, in a variety of positions and locations, passed sweetly by, as I had bite-sized portions of reading to entertain me. Essential equipment for any 75-year olds who hate to waste their time."

Paul Francis

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 "Thanks in particular for summarising T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, as I now can relax knowing I shan't ever have to struggle through it!" Sue W.

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"It’s a gem of a book." Anne L.

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‘Liz Lefroy is a genuine and exciting new poet—one who I’m certain will fly.’

Carol Ann Duffy

 

‘Liz Lefroy’s first slim pamphlet is a triumph. These delicately told human moments sound with the perfect pitch of a true poet. Using not a word too many, she lets us read between the lines. I can’t wait for her first full collection.’

Gillian Clarke

 

‘Liz Lefroy manages tension and conflict with a rare quality—grace.’

James Sheard

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'From the delicious first poem, ‘In The Queue In The Waitrose Café, I Meet My Love’ this is a little book of songs: a love-song to an 85 year old stranger, to sons, at the school concert, or shopping; poems to places, remembered childhood, a mortally ill mother, and all in the easy voice of a natural poet.  The book is LOVELY. The design, the feel, the contents.'  

Gillian Clarke

 

'Nothing is ordinary in these poems, in the sense of unremarkable.
They deal with moments that come in the order of our lives, with people growing, leaving, passing or being remembered.  But the effect of the poems is to lift them slightly out of time, into a perspective that is tender and quizzical, alert for more.'  

Philip Gross

 

'Humanity is something that surfaces again and again in Liz Lefroy's Mending The Ordinary.  A beautifully produced pamphlet from a discerning new press, Fair Acre, Lefroy's language is Larkinesque in its narrative simplicity; finely balanced and lucid phrases that are at once lyrical and full of light-touch.  The subject matter of these poems is so 'ordinary' that a less skilful poet would struggle to say anything of note, but Lefroy's quality of observation, her slant-view perspective and her ability to lift the surface off ordinary moments with no showiness, but deftly and with grace, turn the quotidian into the epiphanic with seeming ease.'  Jan Fortune in Envoi

 

'This pamphlet is beautiful. There is such grace and confidence – as well as wisdom and humour in these poems. They are vital! Fantastic work.'

Joe Stretch

 

This is an extract from a  review that can be read in full at : http://roguestrands.blogspot.com.es/2014/11/the-ripple-of-moments-liz-lefroys.html  

'There’s a freshness to Liz Lefroy’s verse that very much does lift it out of the ordinary. The reader is unexpectedly moved by every poem. That’s a considerable achievement.'

Matthew Stewart

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Review of reading at Wrexham Carnival of Words, by Nadia Kingsley:

http://web236.extendcp.co.uk/fairacrepress.co.uk/news/

 

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'As a mouth-watering entrée, Someone’s Mum (aka prize-winning poet Liz Lefroy) opens the show with a collection of poems, monologues and interactions entitled The Seven Rages of Women. Here experiences of childbirth, therapy, moods, freedom and buying one’s own flowers are discussed with passion. As the mother of two boys, my particular favourite was ‘Why there are so few female characters in Lord of the Rings, Transformers, Star Wars and other films through which I have slept’; a deliciously ironic commentary focussing upon the sorry reduction in female protagonists on the big screen over the last decade. Special mention should also go to ‘Wanted in Seven Mood States’, in which marvellous use of metaphor really displayed Lefroy’s talent as a poet.' 

Sarah McIntosh, Broadway Baby

 

Full review at:

http://www.broadwaybaby.com/shows/threesome/29290

 

'This was a revelation. In a small but very welcoming café on a corner half way up Leith Walk three accomplished poets were performing their work.

 

We began with Someone’s Mum, aka Liz Lefroy, and her Seven Rages of Woman. Liz is a successful poet on the printed page, having won the Roy Fisher prize for her pamphlet Pretending the Weather. We heard of the many problems of childhood, the gaps in the Shakespeare original, what lies between childhood and lover or soldier, and the exasperations of motherhood and of roles assigned to women. Performing her poetry is something fairly new for Liz,  but her work is striking in its ideas and imagery, and deserves close attention.'  

Tony Challis, ScotsGay Magazine

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'Still Life is a haunting performance: two women with their beautiful voices, in a fascinating interweaving of their deeply moving poetry of loss and pain. They speak of what it is to love and to lose those that we love and how we survive it. Their voices rise and fall; the listener is spellbound; both moved and reassured. It is a privilege to hear them.  Memorising Lyrical, musical, beautiful …' Deb Alma, The Emergency Poet.

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'I was deeply affected by the performance, so much so that I looked forward to seeing it for a second time, and will not hesitate if a third chance presents itself.' Tim Cook, Journalist.

 

'It was a privilege to be there, and I for one would love to see and hear it again. Art is all about making personal stuff universal, and Carol Caffrey and Liz Lefroy achieve that in the area that is most sensitive to all of us. If was powerful, nuanced and life-affirming.'  Ted Eames, Poet.

 

'I first saw Still Life in a small library with no special lighting, or anything - just microphones - an I found it totally immersive. It held my attention throughout and I felt uplifted at the end. What a really moving, funny performance -- sensitively designed and performed by two very different women -- that gelled as a whole. the poetry was my kind of poetry -- extremely well-crafted, but immediately accessible and understandable -- and said things in a way that no other art can. FIVE STARS!! Loved it!' Nadia Kingsley, Editor, Fair Acre Press

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