The Way the Crocodile Taught Me

"I love The Way the Crocodile Taught Me for Katrina Naomi's cool voice and fierce eye. For her humour and compassion. For her cast of colourful characters: from a cross-dressing step-father to the Kray twins and a dubious lama. For the journey she takes us – from a childhood a lesser poet would have milked for its sob-stuff to a pass high in the Annapurna mountains where, taking the lama's blessing for her dead mother, she allows her emotion to pour out in a passage all the more moving because of her previous reticence." – Vicki Feaver «These are fiercely and triumphantly female poems, recording in sensuous detail the objects, clothes, emotions of a difficult childhood, recalling her departed father, her mother's men, the hated step-father. They are written with brave truth. It's a vivid collection of elegy and celebration.» – Gillian Clarke The Way the Crocodile Taught Me is the eagerly awaited new poetry collection by Katrina Naomi. In it she reveals a childhood fraught with family dislocation, upsets and even occasional violence, and finds, through her art, moments of grace, humour and redemption.