This is Not Your Final Form

A collection of poems about Birmingham. Bringing together entries from the inaugural VERVE Poetry Festival Competition, this anthology depicts a second city which is no longer content to play second fiddle. Poets from a range of backgrounds - long-term residents and visitors alike - tell personal stories and take on the area's complex industrial and social history, as well as its unique belnd of architectural styles. The result is a tough, unsentimental love letter to the Midlands metropolis, which finds beauty in concrete and unity in contradiction.