Don’t let the insouciant wit of Zoe Brooks’s title kid you. Fool’s Paradise is a dive into the uncanny: into that rich heritage of myth in which we find ourselves both far from home, and simultaneously at home. Brooks combines layers of folk cultural allusion with a clear and forceful language. The result is a dark parable, one of whose messages – like that of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage – is that life is perpetual journeying.

- Fiona Sampson

This is an extraordinary piece of writing: truly compelling.

I kept thinking that this poem's power did not quite belong to our own time. It reminded me of the most intense folk songs of the early 70s, or of Dorothy Sayers' religious plays for radio. I felt it was in a spiritual tradition, but not wholly of this country...

- Alison Brackenbury