Poetry. Selima Hill writes, Hazel Jones is that rare and wonderful thing: a natural poet. But don't be fooled by her lyricism. The sensuous, often wistful, seductiveness of her work belies a tough heart. To read these poems is to go on a painful journey into a precious world where loss and hope are tentatively reconciled. She is not afraid to make the reader think. This is the work of a poet who is here to stay. Whether haunting rooms from Santiago to Prague, walking along estuary shorelines, or burning letters in autumn gardens, Hazel Jones is an angry, wistrul and defiant woman who challenges the ideas of love, loss and belonging with a keen sense of independence: the bruising hours/ have browned the skin/ beneath your swollen eyes,/ your left hand probes/ the meaning of your face,/ numb with denial/ of who you thought you were (Hotel Room). She lives in Devon and is a member of the performance poetry group Something Frightening.