A collection of 86 Poems, all with an element of crime containing themes about the things people do to each other. Most have dark themes and some right at the grimmest edge of crime fiction. There's nothing cosy in those poems!
Written between 2004 - 2025 they contain fiction, fact, and blurring of all things dark and disturbing.
Criminal Poetry in the rawest form, or no form at all, just words in a book about people, emotions, flashes of rage and anger, passion and beyond. Not for the faint of heart or those with experiences that might be triggering, and if you’re looking for love, rather than crime.
It's only the ridiculous, bizarre and sublime that loiters inside.
I don't read anywhere near as much poetry as I used to but as a crime fiction lover, I was intrigued by this collection from F.E. Birch. As a former police officer, F.E. Birch will have seen the best and worst of humanity and she pours that knowledge into her poems. Some readers, especially those who have experienced traumatic life events, may find her raw honesty too upsetting but others will appreciate her insightful compassion and righteous anger.
There are some harrowing subjects explored here and so I read this collection over the course of a couple of weeks; some raised a wry smile while others were more viscerally affecting. The suffering of children is a particularly sensitive topic but although poems such as If No One Comes, I Was Ten Then and Son's Lament don't flinch from the cruel realities of abuse and neglect, they are never gratuitous and F.E. Birch's empathetic understanding is evident throughout. The same is true of the poems like For You, a sparsely worded, tense description of domestic violence. Meanwhile, the grittier side of society is put under the microscope in poems such as Bygone Town and Cider and Other Things.
This is often a deeply poignant collection – Ten Little Toes is a moving, hopeful poem about a premature baby, Breathless is a heartbreaking poem of loss, and both Black Bananas and Those Lists That She Made take a touching look at ageing and dementia. There are lighter moments too, with Eating the Frog cleverly twisting the well-known fairy-tale, while dark revenge can be found in the likes of the pitch-black Christmas rhyme, Leg or Breast or the unexpected twist of Stockholm Syndrome. As well as her poems, F.E. Birch is also a crime writer and several of her poems here are artfully pared back gritty thrillers; Long Tall Woman in a Black Wig is a sharp tale of revenge, On the Rocks tells of a terrible tragedy and Head in the Sand proves to be a creepy play on words.
This is just a taster, of course and there are several other poems here, all of which are thought-provoking, heartrending or chilling as F.E. Birch plays with words and form which keeps this evocative collection feeling lively and unpredictable throughout. Often acerbically unflinching but always full of heart, I thoroughly enjoyed Criminal Poetry: Crhyme Time and highly recommend it.
Criminal Poetry: Crhyme Time can be purchased from Amazon UK and Amazon US, It is also available on Kindle Unlimited.
I love hearing poems read aloud, Effie reads hers on TikTok and also appears at book events around the country.
About the Author
With a bendy EDS body, GSOH and a tad clumsy, she wears many hats and loves wigs. Her friends call her Effie.
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