‘Banjo’
By Samantha Wynne-Rydderch
Published by Picador Poetry on the 7th June 2012
RRP £9.99 (paperback)
ISBN 9780330544665

While Banjo opens with a clutch of fine lyrics, elegies and set-pieces, at the heart of Samantha Wynne-Rydderch’s new book is a remarkable tale of darkness and light, music and silence. Celebrating the centenary of Captain Scott’s arrival at the South Pole in 1912, Banjo gives us new psychological insight into the lives of the early Antarctic pioneers, as well as an extraoridinary account of the role played by music in surviving the long Antarctic winters. Banjo is Samantha Wynne-Rydderch’s most accomplished collection to date, and further evidence of a writer of great imaginative versatility.