Born in Salisbury in 1957 and growing up on a dairy farm, Janet Sutherland studied at Cardiff and Essex Universities and has an MA in American poetry. After twenty years living and working in East London she moved to Lewes in 2001 with her partner and son. Her first collection, Burning the Heartwood, was published by Shearsman in 2006. The poems in Hangman's Acre are lyrical, weaving images of loss and of love, of grief and light, of language and nature. Where there is beauty it is beauty with an edge.