‘A kaleidoscopic menagerie of creatures, both heavenly and demonic, await the reader in Pascale Petit’s astonishing collection Beast.’ – Georgie Henley, Poetry Wales
Bloodaxe published Pascale Petit’s ninth poetry collection, Beast, in April 2025
For details and to buy please click to Bloodaxe page HERE
Beast is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and won the Society of Authors’ Arthur Welton Award while in progress.
It is available to order from Amazon.co.uk HERE
Mythic and familial beasts roam the swamps and moors of Pascale Petit’s Beast. These spirits of the wild haunt the Camargue of Provence, the limestone Causses and gorges of the Languedoc, Indian tiger forests, the Amazon rainforest, and her home by Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. Some of these remote places are vestiges of earth’s pristine habitats, while other wildernesses are encaged in cellars of Paris, along with the world’s last species. Their essence is evoked in lithe and luxurious lines sometimes compressed as a trapped animal.
An estranged father reappears as a hunter, while Maman is an orb spider or a grand piano; both are predators. And there are earthly beasts – wild horses and bulls, lammergeiers, bee-eaters and catfish, remnants of a vanishing natural world. Beast asks if survival is possible in an abusive family and on an abused home planet, in the face of climate catastrophe, childhood trauma and war. These poems address difficult challenges, insisting that making art is an act of love and hope, and there are joyful lyrics celebrating the ineffable beauty of endangered species.
Reviews
A kaleidoscopic menagerie of creatures, both heavenly and demonic, await the reader in Pascale Petit’s astonishing collection Beast. […] This is a collection of many skins, pelts, furs, wings, as Petit finds strange sanctuary in the quotidian violence of the skies and sea. Bodies are pierced, bruised, bloodied, yet it is Petit’s plaintive assertions of hope that truly knock the breath out of her reader, ‘I am a door no one can open’.’ – Georgie Henley, Poetry Wales
‘The imagery has a lineage of Plath’s intensity meets Hughes bestiary, with an emotional narrative all Petit’s own. This gripping collection from Petit, whose work has been short-listed for the T.S. Eliot prize four times, teams with surprises.’ – Rebecca Morgan Frank, Literary Hub (Seven Poetry Collections to Read in July 2025), on Beast
‘Petit, who is of French, Welsh, and Indian heritage, embraces the landscapes of each of her countries of origin in potent brooding poems that explore trauma and transformation. Following the dark paths her memories forge, Petit documents scenes that seethe with life and startling imagery, “the air quivering with scented paths into the perfumed forest.” […] It’s a vivid and elegant collection.’ – Publishers Weekly, on Beast
‘In Beast, you are submerged in mythic and warped realities. An encyclopedia of animals, insects and endangered species weaved into a tale of survival, family and our current climate. Petit’s exploration of childhood makes you question the many things we navigate to get us through the most difficult times. […] Petit’s universe continues to grow, and I am thankful.’ – Yomi Ṣode, Poetry Book Society Selector
‘Beast is an intense, lyrical work which asks difficult questions: whether survival is possible in an abusive family, or on an abused planet ravaged by war and climatic destruction. Yet the poet finds love, hope and celebration where she can, in the making of art, and in the beauty of an endangered world.’ – The Scotsman, Poem of the Week
In this, her ninth collection, Pascale Petit summons a vivid bestiary of creatures – tigers, wolves, horses, dragons – across mythic and endangered landscapes: the Camargue of Provence, the tiger forests of India, the wilder edges of Cornwall. These animals are more than metaphor – they snarl, shimmer, and sob, taking on life and becoming, as we progress, fragments of memory or mirrors, watchers or helpers who “shield”. […] Family and the feral entwine, and trauma is not evaded but embraced, examined, and often transformed into dreamlike – nightmarish – yet also lyric imagery, via language that is lush but never overgrown. Rather, Petit’s lines are muscular, sensuous, and charged with feeling. There are moments of delicacy, but most palpably there is the song of survival… […] A remarkable work.’ – Mab Jones, Buzz Magazine, on Beast
‘These poems gallop with surrealism – each page is like stepping into a Frida Kahlo painting, or perhaps a work by Louise Bourgeois. […] Petit’s beasts dance through her language. […] For Petit, metaphors give form to the unspeakable. […] Although there may not be answers, there is powerful knowing here.’ – Ellora Sutton, Mslexia, on Beast
Praise for Pascale Petit’s poetry:
‘Tiger Girl…pushes deep into the wilder places of the forest and the human heart. It shimmers with the colours of bee-eaters and flycatchers and rages at the darker regions of environmental exploitation and cruelty… alarming, mythic, beautiful…’ – Alexandra Harris, chair of Forward Prize judges
‘I think this might be her best book so far because of this complexity of a family in crisis against a planet in crisis – she’s very much a poet of the environment… She has a powerful, imagistic authority over the landscape. It’s a very moving, powerful book.’ – Daljit Nagra, reviewing Tiger Girl on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row
