Physical

<p><b>*Winner of the 2015 Guardian First Book Award*</b><br><br><b>Raw and urgent these poems are hymns to the male body &#150; to male friendship and male love &#150; muscular sometimes shocking but always deeply moving. </b><br><br>We are witness here to an almost religious celebration of the flesh: a flesh vital with the vulnerability of love and loss to desire and its departure. In an extraordinary blend of McMillan&#146;s own colloquial Yorkshire rhythms with a sinewy Metaphysical music and Thom Gunn&#146;s torque and speed &#150; &#145;your kiss was deep enough to stand in&#146; &#150; the poems in this first collection confront what it is to be a man and interrogate the very idea of masculinity. This is poetry where every instance of human connection from the casual encounter to the intimate relationship becomes redeemable and revelatory. <br><br>Dispensing with conventional punctuation the poet is attentive and alert to the quality of breathing giving the work an extraordinary sense of being vividly poised and present &#150; drawing lines that are deft lyrical and perfectly pitched from a world of urban dereliction. An elegant stylist and unfashionably honest poet McMillan&#146;s eye and ear are tuned exactly to both the mechanics of the body and the miracles of the heart.<br><br><b>Winner of the 2015 Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize </b><br><b>Shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Poetry Prize</b><br><b>Shortlisted for the 2015 Forward Prize for Best First Collection</b></p>