I rarely approve of taking poetry on holiday. I’m far too shallow, skittish and lazy to deal with the potential after-effects: really fantastic poems have the unpredictable ability to sneak out of nowhere and stun, or give me a dizzyingly vertiginous glimpse of what’s missing from my soul (most of it), or at the other extreme leave me feeling so blissful that I am likely to walk into traffic if not supervised. Frankly, it’s a health and safety risk which I doubt you should condone.

But on the other hand, last summer’s holiday read was the late discovery of Diane Wakoski, The Butcher’s Apron – the most luscious, opulent, no-holds-barred poems around greed, plenty, generosity and food.  My novelistic urge in summer reading has also been satisifed in the last few years by Emily Ballou’s The Darwin Poems and by Glyn Maxwell’s The Sugar Mile.

Lilias Fraser is the Scottish Poetry Library’s Reader Development Officer, working on all manner of reading groups and courses, and reading projects with older people. She has also served as a judge on the Scottish Book Awards.