From the opening poem in which he recognises himself “raving blessedly/ between truth and delusion”, to the closing poem’s return to “something new and strange: / yourself, again”, in his latest book Cork’s uncrowned poet laureate explores, confronts, ventriloquizes, indulges and, at every available opportunity, undermines the very notion of the self engaged in a writing life – even as he takes on the duties of that calling with total committment.

At once hilarious and melancholy, earnest and throwaway, the poems in The Humours of Nothingness take nothing for granted – least of all the power of humour in the entirely serious business of staying sane.