In Pretenders, her third book of poetry, Kate Potts asks: what is it like, as a daily, lived experience, to feel like a fraud or a fake? And what can 'the imposter phenomenon' - a sense that our true abilities and achievements, and other core aspects of our identities, are unreal, undeserved or mistakenly bestowed - tell us about who we are and how we relate to one another?

Through lively and vivid poetic monologues drawn from original interview material, and through original poetry, Pretenders begins to consider individual feelings and experiences of fraudulence, pretence and persona in a wider social and historical context. The varied, hesitant, questing voices build to create a bold and innovative chorus. Pretenders shines a light on our value systems and hierarchies, interrogating notions of 'realness', self-assurance, and the self. Kate Potts' Whichever Music was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice in 2008 and shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. Her first book-length collection, Pure Hustle, was published by Bloodaxe in 2011, and followed by Feral, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

About the Author

Kate Potts is a poet, academic, mentor and editor. Her second collection, Feral (Bloodaxe Books, 2018) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and a Telegraph poetry book of the month. Her debut pamphlet Whichever Music (tall-lighthouse, 2008) was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and was shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. Her first full-length collection was Pure Hustle (Bloodaxe Books, 2011). Her third, Pretenders, is published by Bloodaxe in 2025.

Kate writes about creative writing and everyday life, including the intersections and tensions between writing and caregiving, in her newsletter Speak Up! On Writing, Failing Better, and Taking up Space. She lives in Stroud, Gloucestershire, with her son.

Reviews

These are poems of a marvellously observed, bodily interiority which engage with our animal selves, at a loss in the concrete warrens of our cities, as they starve or gorge, roam or home. The resulting book is deeply personal, compelling, occasionally hilarious and frequently unsettling as the 'strange fish' of our thoughts emerge from their 'iron guardedness' and hitch themselves to the amazing railings of these poems. And the radio poem The Blown Definitions is a wonder, a whole island mythos to itself. Kate Potts is one of the foremost writers of our generation. Buy this monstrously brilliant book.

-- Fiona Benson * on Feral *

Excitement is one thing that is definitely not missing from Kate Potts's Feral. The language here dazzles, astonishes; the poems are alive. I would say that the poet is incapable of writing a predictable sentence, but it feels more true to say that she is incapable of writing a predictable word...To read Feral for a while is to find it bamboozling and beautiful, to want to read it for longer. Once that's done, the only response is to consider it a masterpiece, and to feel that everyone who cares about language should read it.

-- Jonathan Edwards * Poetry Wales *

Feral is a storehouse of manifold enchantments: a book in which lore and personal iconography are melded to startling effect. The technical assurance displayed here alongside a strong beating heart make for a sonically and emotionally rich reading, and re-reading, experience. This collection is 'a feat of balance', as the poem 'Iron Horse' has it, where each component gives shape and function to the elegant motion of the whole.

-- Kayo Chingonyi

It has taken Potts seven years to write this follow-up to her debut Pure Hustle. It's been worth the wait. Feral is musical, joyously weird and filled with moments of pure pleasure.

-- Tristram Fane Saunders * The Telegraph (Poetry Book of the Month) *



Book Information
ISBN 9781780377308
Author Kate Potts
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 138mm * 11mm