Once in a blue, or lemon moon even, a poet comes along whose language is as fresh as freshly peeled fruit.

For me, right now, that poet is Shetland-based Jen Hadfield, the deserved winner of last year’s T.S Eliot prize.

Her collection ‘Nigh-No-Place’, published by Bloodaxe, is a joy. It sits on a my bedside table, top of an eclectic little tower that includes Carol Ann Duffy and Norman MacCaig. So, I suppose, I carry these poems on the flood tide of sleep. Here’s one:

from In the same way

and the wind canters in

and she with a wild carol

and all the night hail

melted gleaming in her furs