Daphne Milne
'Behind Prim Suburban Walls'
Joint winner of the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize, 2025
Joint winner of the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize, 2025
ISBN 978-1-917101-13-4
52 pages
RRP £9.99
52 pages
RRP £9.99
Daphne Milne draws readers into the small worlds of a suburban community's residents, their hopes and disappointments and their secret lives, with a sure-footed, confident flow of language and images, in the footsteps of Dylan Thomas' 'Under Milkwood'.
Affectionate but acute, she acknowledges the small snobberies of its better-off residents; she records the fears of some of its ageing denizens, the local events that mark the changing seasons, Individuals are celebrated: 'Kate' who's planning her hundredth birthday party and dreading getting 'really old' (she's ninety-two); 'Jim', who 'leads a quietly important life' and she kindly sketches the lives of children and young people in this small community.
And among the self-contained suburban dwellings walks Kevin, the cat from No 3, who strolls from house to house, 'observing the shenanigans / through his glass green eyes'.
Comment from Jean Atkin:
"Daphne Milne is a most observant poet, so here are poems which see it all go on, whilst emanating a playfulness both dry and compassionate. ‘Behind innocent looking walls other lives occur’ she writes – and in this collection the sense of neighbourhood threads through the poems, with reappearances by houses, people, ghosts – and flaneur cats. This is crafted, clever, experienced writing – Milne so adept at completing a poem: ‘He’s the man with the bouncy heels / who keeps happiness in his hat’.
Behind her suburban walls, the struggles of other lives are noted and recorded, but Milne keeps hope alive: ‘Upsets and shenanigans all round/ and yet and yet the world is still all right’"
Affectionate but acute, she acknowledges the small snobberies of its better-off residents; she records the fears of some of its ageing denizens, the local events that mark the changing seasons, Individuals are celebrated: 'Kate' who's planning her hundredth birthday party and dreading getting 'really old' (she's ninety-two); 'Jim', who 'leads a quietly important life' and she kindly sketches the lives of children and young people in this small community.
And among the self-contained suburban dwellings walks Kevin, the cat from No 3, who strolls from house to house, 'observing the shenanigans / through his glass green eyes'.
Comment from Jean Atkin:
"Daphne Milne is a most observant poet, so here are poems which see it all go on, whilst emanating a playfulness both dry and compassionate. ‘Behind innocent looking walls other lives occur’ she writes – and in this collection the sense of neighbourhood threads through the poems, with reappearances by houses, people, ghosts – and flaneur cats. This is crafted, clever, experienced writing – Milne so adept at completing a poem: ‘He’s the man with the bouncy heels / who keeps happiness in his hat’.
Behind her suburban walls, the struggles of other lives are noted and recorded, but Milne keeps hope alive: ‘Upsets and shenanigans all round/ and yet and yet the world is still all right’"
