Michael Farrell is well known for his ability to break language\nand action into their component gestures, freeing the emotion\nlocked up in them, and very often their comic or magical aspects\ntoo, as the title of his new poetry collection suggests. Open\nSesame includes sonnets derived from the TV drama The Bill, a\nsestina featuring JFK set in a laundrette, an improvised parody\nwhich cuts up writing found on supermarket shelves, collage poems\nincluding one on Phar Lap, four long poems on the theme of\nfriendship, and luke and henrys storyline, the story of a\ncommitment ceremony between two gay men. In an earlier form, the\nmanuscript of this collection won the inaugural Barrett Reid Poetry\nPrize for experimental poetry, and was praised by the judges for\nits playfulness, craft and subliminal force.

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