Laird's debut collection, To a Fault (2005), signalled the arrival of a significant new talent, 'doing more, in its range and ambition,' wrote Deryn Rees-Jones in the Independent, 'than any first collection I can think of in at least the last ten years.' On Purpose confirms the promise of that first book and shows the author hitting new and yet more athletic strides.

Blending tones of assurance and delicacy, of confidence and vulnerability, On Purpose is a collection of poems that takes care and consideration in examining the often brutal arena of human relations, concluding with a mercurial and affecting sequence about a marriage, which takes, as its point of departure, that most influential of military treatise, The Art of War.

With On Purpose, prize-winning poet Nick Laird returns with a second stunning collection.

About the Author
Nick Laird was born in County Tyrone in 1975. A poet, novelist, screenwriter, critic and former lawyer, his awards include the Betty Trask Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award and a Guggenheim fellowship. Feel Free (2018) was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot prize and the Derek Walcott award. 'Up Late' the title poem from his latest collection Up Late (2023) won the Forward Prize for Best Poem. He is the Seamus Heaney Professor of Poetry at Queens' University, Belfast.

Reviews
"'Nick Laird's To a Fault watches the weight and measure of every word with a mixture of irony and tender loving care' Observer"


Awards
Winner of Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize 2008.



Book Information
ISBN 9780571237388
Author Nick Laird
Format Paperback
Page Count 80
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber
Weight(grams) 115g
Dimensions(mm) 200mm * 130mm * 7mm