This is a collection of near–prose poetry. Holly Pester, the author, uses light words, easy words, to make a clear mark.

A good café focuses our attention away from the work produced. It confuses work with leisure. Now we’re sore, let’s reflect on our damaged life. Each café is civilisation’s averted conclusion. A powerless little proxy confuses me. Put it this way, sometimes I feel gargantuan, always powerless, made of public, like I’m all of it, before and after. Then I realize I’m yelling.

The first section of the book flows like thoughts from a café owner. The second is, to me, about jealousy and rejection.

I almost didn’t mention but this is where the Birmingham Surrealists used to meet. There are free maps on the bench by the door showing where they dragged their heads. I pick one up and drag my head on the map. Remember my breasts, remember, they are part of my fate. My fate is to scrub my mother in a bath as I miss your call, then sit alone by the stove with a book.

Moments of the book are thought–provoking: everyday rote movements have a sentence thrown in that marks other thoughts, other times that are contrasted with the current, whatever current time may be. Some sentences seem strange and have their place.

We have to face each other - even for a millisecond as we swirl our collective head around the room - waiting for this lover. This is where art movements were formed, also the centre of violence, the small slaughter of workers. In and out of earshot of big deals. This is why it’s romantic, because we’re both hiding and we’re public. I wanted to take my private thought of you to a Small Business. A simple practice. We live on notice, we longed for each other. The beginning of modern love – here – to gaze and wait. To spend time on the idea of someone. To be seen from the street longing for someone. I’ve added to it bureaus and secret nods. To think about you is to be still in every other thought, that’s why it’s a café, so I can see myself doing it. We abuse the props.

This is a solemn book wrapped in the promise of violence of the mind. Time with this book is time valuably spent.

Cafés is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.