With Dear Dog in hand, one of the most beautiful first books of poetry ever produced, we sit and read in an English garden, guarded by stone lions. Paul Wuensche is a painter as well as a poet and much as he wants to keep the two separate, these poems paint pictures. They are painterly, with gorgeous brushstrokes." Give an old lady a stick/And a wheelchair/And she can sit like Lincoln/Who overlooks that long lake/And the strange obelisk —." The beauty of the painting on the cover tells a lot about the beauty of the work inside.

The title poem is about a dog who is gone ("Many dog years/Have whizzed by/Since I had to let you go"), and the poet recalls a garden party on his beloved dog's last week: "We made fun of you I'm afraid,/Gave you a newspaper to read/Dark glasses to wear/And you looked like an old man/Who didn't understand children's games." One reader burst into tears.

The poems are far-ranging in subject. History, nature, love, medical procedures, a remote funeral ("Trust me to be late to a funeral/In my own room/On my own laptop"), age, brothers, friendship.

Though the poems seem universal or general, with each there is the shock of intimacy. And the intimacy itself is surprising: "I like to watch her/Even at night, when she sits in/Her little office far too late/And fills up neat rows/And columns on spreadsheets....Beside her on the desk/The mug says Best accountant/in the world."

Wuensche tell us:

"I've always chosen as friends/One or two old enough/to know their lives/Are soon to be rounded off," and then there is a startling image: "Their borrowed flesh/Soon to be returned,/Like a folded prison uniform." He hopes to learn from them "by some silent gesture of the hands -/Like someone modelling a vase in wet clay,/The slim, elegant shape/Of all that matters in life."

There is still time for him, and for us. You will find that slim, elegant shape, all that matters in life, in this book.

Paul Wuensche studied French and Italian literature at Cambridge University, and completed an MFA at the New York Academy of Art. He is a full-time artist based in London, and also teaches painting and sculpture. He has exhibited widely including at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Dear Dog is his first collection of poems.

"In Paul Wuensche's collection Dear Dog, the poem Coot begins with these lines: The red-faced chick/winds herself in river yarn. In the poem Tortoise, Wuensche shows how teeth scissor through each leaf/like a tailor cutting cloth. Nearly every poem affords sharp or fragrant similies and comparisons. And the poems rage widely in their subjects, with a sympathetic focus on animals, plants, trees, each poem letting us know something new or remiding us of something we're forgotten, left behind in our business. I read this book of poems all at once, in the afternoon, unwilling to stop. I read it with admiration and pleasure." — Robert Clinton, author of All These Things I Will Give to You

"The poems in Dear Dog by Paul Wuensche often contain hints as to their origins or inspirations, as in John the Baptist like a sick man on a train and Kafka, in a world that melts with sorrow/like a Dali painting. These hints subtly bring them into our own world, where other poems begin, like the one to his brother like an ill-tempered/version of Judge Judy. There are personal poems, raw and risky, like Orchidectomy and Sleepovers, many poems puzzling over love, not without humor. I think my favorite poem is Failure with its telling dedication to Kipling and its nod to Samuel Beckett's great instruction to Fail better. Sharp, reflective, Paul Wuensche's voice is not self-depreciating in a false way, but is the voice of someone not afraid to look into the mirror long enough for it to be uncomfortable. These are poems I look forward to re-reading." — Aileen La Tourette, winner of the Long Canyon International Poetry Award

"Dear Dog by Paul Wuensche is deeply personal, wide-ranging and quiet, circling around the universal difficulties of being human, exploring themes like grief and mortality with unexpected turns. Often playful, it is a collection to remember, one that shows deep awareness and a serious search for something normally out of reach." — Paul Schaeffer, author of the Cruelties of Brooklyn