If the Mute Timer by Tom Docherty Ruby Robinson ‘Every so often

‘Every so often

such as those offered by radical but sidelined figures in the English Civil War

they are less about physical union and completeness and more about fracture and distance: tender

Along the way it takes in fossil-finders – like the pioneering Mary Anning – T-Rex’s gym routine

If the Mute Timer by Tom Docherty Ruby Robinson ‘Every so oftenTom Dochertys first collection, If the Mute Timber, begins not with a book nor even an attentive ear, but with the elusive fragment of its title. The poems situate themselves in medias res: among birds or gravestones, between lines of prayer, in the flux of appearances. Places without words become focal points: the poems seek articulation in life before birth and after death; in animal and imagined lives; in works of music, painting, and architecture;