Pretending the Weather

"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."

Gillian Clarke

"Liz Lefroy manages tension and conflict with a rare quality - grace."

James Sheard

Mending the Ordinary

"From the delicious first poem, 'In the Queue in the Waitrose, 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 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

"There is 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."

Matthew Stewart

Festival in a Book

"It really is a wonderful book, and so clever and original ... it totally captures the energy - 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

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

Paul Francis

"The anthology is wonderful!"

Adam Horovitz

"What a gorgeous production! I love the way it has been structured, and the variety of the poems and poets makes it a fantastic read."

Tess Jolly

GREAT MASTER/small boy

"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 in 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

I Buy A New Washer

"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

"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

"Thanks in particular for summarising TS Eliot's Four Quartets as I can now relax knowing I shan't ever have to struggle through it!"

Sue W.

"It's a gem of a book."

Anne L.

Threesome /
Sweet Thunder
(Edinburgh Fringe, and elsewhere)

"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 Woman. 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 decasde. . Special mention should also go to 'Wanted in Seven Mood States', in which marvellous use of metaphorreally displayed Lefroy's talent as a poet"

Sarah McIntosh, Broadway Baby

"This was a revelation. In a small but very welcoming cafe on a corner halfway 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 the 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

Still Life

A performance with Carol Caffrey

"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. Mesmerising, lyrical, musical, beautiful ..."

Deb Alma, The Emergency Poet

"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

"I first saw Still Life in a small library with no special lighting, or anything - just microphones - and 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 by immediately accessible and understandable, saying things in a way that no other art can. FIVE STARS!!

Nadia Kingsley, Editor, Fair Acre Press