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Konstandinos Mahoney\u2019s debut collection fizzes with joie de vivre. Though it doesn\u2019t flinch from the difficult, even the tragic, it\u2019s sexy and life affirming: rich in sensual detail, acute, precisely, expressed observations all underpinned by a wry wit. In Ladyboy<\/em> \u2018A woman\u2019s face and form, bar one small detail,\/smooth legged she strides along the Silom Soi.\u2019 In Night Market <\/em>\u2018mosquitos hum and whine, a soft voice purrs,\/\u201dGirl sir, want girl? Young girl? Boy Sir? Opium?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n Tutti frutti<\/em> \u00a0jostles with memorable personalities; their multilingual voices subtly conjured\u00a0 or directly present in the text. There\u2019s Aunt Aphrodite: \u2018Mum\u2019s spoons start disappearing.\/she\u2019s stuffing them down her drawers,\u201d dad says;\/In her defense, I say, \u201cshe doesn\u2019t wear any\u201d (Aunt Aphrodite<\/em>); the woman speaking with \u2018martinet briskness,\u2019 (Ring, Ring<\/em>); the Reverend Doctor \u2018how empty the bottle has become\/how he\u2019ll fetch another one. (An Evening with the Reverend Doctor<\/em>); the child whose \u2018words sprout in her mouth like milk teeth (Six Hundred<\/em>) and the crazed voices of Dr Mirabilis and the Brass Wall That Will Save England<\/em> \u201cet nunc et semper, amen\u201d an owlish friar drones\/(while taking selfies for his Instagram)\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Mahoney\u2019s geography is equally specific and vividly conveyed: \u2018a council flat off the Lillie Road,\u2019 \u2018 a grand house in Kononaki\u2019, \u2018the dark Mekong\u2019, \u2018the slopes of Canlaon Vulcan,\u2019 \u2018In Montreal our hostess, gives a Gallic shrug.\u2019 Such details \u00a0evoke both a powerful sense of place and an awareness of the transience of experience: the poet is one place then another. The world of this collection is broad and the poet seems to share an adventurous restlessness with his mother who in Athena Nike<\/em>\u00a0 \u2018\u2026 conjures Smyrna in flames, flight to Alexandria, Athens in the occupation, liberation,\/civil war, and English soldier, love, London, me,\u2019. Here, Mahoney\u2019s use of a list helps to telescope then expand time within the poem.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Elsewhere, repeated emphasis on single details distils the essence and striking singularity of events, people and places so that they live on the page. Mahoney implies, with great economy, a vibrant sensory hinterland within each poem: in The Alexandrian<\/em> the eponymous hero has \u2018 sex with sailors, waiters, stevadores,\/muscled torsos, alabaster,\/ideal bodies, olive skin,\/mechanic\u2019s grease, sweet jasmine\u2019. A merchant seaman passes stalls: \u2018With pomeo, pak choi, bitter melon;\/shops stocked with jars of fungi, penis\/horn\u2026\u2019 inn Aberdeen Street.<\/em> In Maenad <\/em>\u2018she sets off tout de suite in triple time\/Bourree, valeta, mazurka, tarantella\u2019 a line which itself trip sat a dancing pace. This technique is nowhere more successful than in \u00a0After access<\/em> where Mahoney\u2019s use of the concrete creates both humour and pathos through careful juxtaposition: \u2018an abandoned sandwich\/small crescent bit\/[\u2026]\/spell in a bucket\/yipped down the sink\/man on sofa\/stiff drink\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The poems shift in mood and tone but are unified by Mahoney\u2019s sharp eye for the absurd, the telling detail and the incongruous. In Ladyboy <\/em>\u2018 She lip-synchs Whitney at the Colosseum,\/The songs she sings to me are out of tune,\u2019.<\/p>\n Vampire Madonna<\/em> ends \u2018 Once, on a Greek island, I saw a woman call her son\/from the sea, \u201cKostaki! Kostaki!\u201d\/He waded out, balding, pot-bellied, hair-chested,\/and she wrapped him in a towel and led him away.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n These are poems in which Christmas tree are amputees, \u2018Stripped bare, peg-legged, balding,\u2019(Twelfth Night,<\/em>) where bees are \u2018Bright as soft chips off a tiger\u2019s back\u2019 ( Beeze,<\/em>)<\/p>\n where Cherry blossom \u2018Comes sudden as ecstatic foam\/that blooms on epileptic lips.\u2019 It is a collection full of unexpected turns as well as poems that tremble with desire and loss.<\/p>\n The earliest poems\u00a0 in tutti frutti<\/em> deal with burgeoning sexual desire then move on to familial relationships, death and the loss of relationships. Emotion is measured, often ambivalent but all the more powerful for that:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2018Holed up in his room, the son,<\/p>\n Too scared to get close,<\/p>\n To look upon in an iron god in rust,<\/p>\n Wary of unknotted tongues,<\/p>\n The crippled tenderness<\/p>\n That still might show.\u2019<\/p>\n (Death of Poseidon<\/em> )<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2018He gave me my values,\u2019 she whimpers,<\/p>\n Dabbing moist eyes,<\/p>\n Next morning, they leave \u2013<\/p>\n Earlier than planned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Car turns the corner.<\/p>\n Gone.<\/p>\n (His Values<\/em>)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n tutti frutti<\/em> is as affecting as it is exuberant, the writing as meticulous as it is surprising: a scintillating\u00a0 and powerful debut.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr Nick Browne<\/strong> has taught creative writing at Oxford University ( Continuing Education) Arvon, the British Council and a number of other universities. In addition to publishing short stories and poetry, Nick has published nine novels with Bloomsbury.<\/p>\n