Benchwarmers

<p><em>Benchwarmers </em>Nigel Kent's latest pamphlet gives a voice to those who live their lives at the margins such as the autistic boy the looked-after child the young offender the anorexic the painfully shy. They are life's outsiders whom circumstances have conspired against: they are the also-rans the subs confined to the bench waiting for the call that never comes. These poignant compassionate poems make visible the invisible and invite the reader to make a connection.</p><p><br></p><p class=ql-align-center>***</p><p><br></p><p>Nigel Kent's poems in this collection skillfully sketch out the lives of the dispossessed; those who '...lost life's toss the moment they were born.' His poetry vividly captures the feelings of loss and exclusion experienced by the disenfranchised child and offers us a sobering insight into how our society fails many young people for so many reasons. In his prose poem <em>Cut</em> Nigel Kent sets the sharpest rebuke: portraying the brutalizing effects of ostracism in the psyche of young minds 'I leave my mark    carve my initials in entitlement's bark   with the blade they made.'</p><p>A chilling yet haunting pamphlet of poems.</p><ul><li>Josephine Lay author of<em> 'A Quietus'</em></li></ul><p><br></p><p>It's a recognisable feature of Nigel Kent's earlier collections that many of his poems notice and care about people on the margins of society and this is also central to <em>Benchwarmers</em>. Through these poems Kent allows us a glimpse not only of the constraints misunderstandings and sometimes cruelty his subjects face but also in some cases of how through their own empowered actions and/or the love and attention some receive they can - as two of the poems suggests - either 'speed away' or find their 'own way home'.</p><ul><li>Phil Vernon Author of <em>Poetry after Auschwitz I </em>and <em>Watching the Moon Landing </em></li></ul><p><br></p><p>Nigel Kent takes the reader on a powerful and poignant journey with each turn of the page. <em>Benchwarmers</em> is a superb poetry collection. Highly recommended.</p><ul><li>Patricia M Osborne <em>Poet/Novelist </em></li></ul><p><br></p><p>Powerful and unflinching. Compulsively readable. Defines class divides with sensitivity and dynamism.</p><ul><li>Paul Brookes<em> poet editor of The Wombwell Rainbow</em></li></ul><p><br></p>