Hearing Eye

"June English’s beautifully-written poems are moving, outspoken and ruefully witty. They explore new depths below everyday life: making pastry, or addressing the ‘unwanted visitor’, illness. Though English’s work never flinches from accidents, time, ‘how it all slides away’, it is also lit by the kindness of neighbours, by renewal after war, and by her unquenchable zest for life." Alison Brackenbury

“June English has 'the common touch' in an uncommon way, writing warmly, wittily, with a no-holds-barred courage about the realities of growing up in WW2, family solidarity, poverty, illness, sexual initiation, and, later, abuse by a cold, violent husband. She loves words, experiments with form, and responds with undisguised strong feeling to a wide-range of touchstones, ranging from teenage dressing up and dancing, to the beauty and colour of the natural world, to a strongly realised recreation of her near-death experience. She is a unique voice to be relished and appreciated for her lack of compromise.” Dilys Wood