is Australian poet MTC Cronin's tenth book and her second British collection. A compositional tour de force, the sequence consists of one hundred poems, the line-count arcing from a single line in poem 1 to fifty lines in poem 50, and thence back down to a single line in poem 100. Like many forms, self-imposed or otherwise, Ms Cronin uses this apparently restrictive structure to support a wonderfully original unfolding of verse. Ms Cronin's work has been attracting enormous interest in both Britain and North America, and this volume will reinforce her burgeoning reputation.

M.T.C. Cronin's last Shearsman collection 1-100, was awarded two major literary prizes in her native Australia and also brought her significant attention both in the UK and the USA. Her new collection is in fact four small books in one, four separate 'notebooks', of which the Notebook of Signs is the first, and is followed by the Notebooks of Shapes, Nerves and Sand. Ms Cronin often works in longer forms - although equally adept at the short lyric - and these four sequences demonstate her mastery in this area.