"Tom Pickard, the roustabout English poet, writer and documentary-maker, has his own blues: 'marriage bust up / love's all trussed up.' Drawing on Anglo-Scottish balladry, with its songs of bad love and anti-heroic exploits, his collection The Dark Months of May links its lyric project to a long, rich vernacular tradition . . . Pickard's erotic lyrics have a terrific economy, swiftness and obscene (and alas unquotable) directness, conjuring remembered sex, shared blankets, beds, knives and regret."--Maureen N. McLane, Chicago Tribune

"I love the way each pulse of the indivisible sentence, here in The Dark Months of May, echoes Hardy, when bitterness referred to a virtue, and the strict ticks of a mind hearing what it sees makes a syntax as saintly as it is. It reminds me of an old romantic recording, static and dry and incorruptibly noted."--Fanny Howe

"Through the heart and mind and a concoction of senses, the poet attempts to distill everything down to word--visually, rhythmically, and sonically. In this way the poem speaks a new language of the soul, allowing us to enter through a new portal of consciousness perhaps, or at least, giving us a moment's pause for reflection. So without much ado I would like to introduce you to a collection of poems by Mr. Tom Pickard, otherwise known as Tam O'Red Shirt."--Annie Lennox, Eurythmics