Rosie Shepperd's debut poetry collection, The Man at the Corner Table (Seren), crackles with the unexpected. The voice is one of urban sophistication; a merciless charm that teases and tempts us with sensual evocations of food and place. The reader is surprised with tastes, scents, colours and textures. There is a winning insistence on detail offered with an irony that blends into satire. The poems adopt a deadly seriousness to the business of comedy. Like a secret recipe, the author's technique is invisible, leaving us with poems whose flavors linger and become something that surprises and changes us.