Duncan Forbes's poems have appeared in the Observer, Poetry Review, Spectator and Times Literary Supplement, and have won him a Gregory Award. His collections include August Autumn (Secker & Warburg, 1984), and Taking Liberties (Enitharmon, 1993).

About Voice Mail:

Voice Mail presents a selection of the poems Duncan Forbes has written since publication of Taking Liberties in 1973. A sparklingly varied collection, Voice Mail displays the growing range and depth of the poet's talents and marks a number of new departures. The introductory poem, 'La Brea', won first prize in the TLS / Blackwells Poetry Competition 1997 and Garrison Keillor selected another poem for his radio programme The Writer's Almanac. Accomplished and observant, witty and touching, often in the same poem, Forbes's work moves from serious elegy ('Father') to comic turns ('Downing Street Cat'). The moods, personnel and forms of his poems are as varied as the locations, which shift from the banks of the Severn to California via Greece, Northumberland, Niagara and Melbourne Zoo.

"Wise, witty and sophisticated. . .Duncan Forbes writes civilised poetry in a civilised way."
—Jim Burns, Ambit

"Enitharmon have Duncan Forbes, the most underrated poet now writing."
—John Whitworth, The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook