The Banality of Power by James Byrne
Poetry Book Society Recommendation Summer 2026 Ruth Fainlight parables and tall tales

parables and tall tales

the imagination and often from dream-like states

The highly anticipated new collection from Forward Prize-winner Kei Miller explores his strangest landscape yet – the placeless place

Senior's poems are delicate

The Banality of Power by James Byrne <br><b>Poetry Book Society Recommendation Summer 2026</b> Ruth Fainlight parables and tall talesPublished 31 May 2026 In The Banality of Power, James Byrne anatomises the everyday mechanics of harm, tracing how cruelty becomes procedure, how violence is normalised, and how authority hides in plain sight. These poems move from Eichmanns glass cage to boardrooms, tabloids, riots, outsourced pain and climate breakdown, always alert to the way institutions convert human lives into abstraction. Byrne braids political witness with history and myth,