My Life Asleep is a vigorous collection of poems, lively and never succumbing to gloom, despite their black humour and sometimes macabre tone. This is Jo Shapcott's third collection. She is the joint anthologist with Matthew Sweeney of Emergency Kit for Faber, and her work is appearing in a volume of Penguin Modern Poets. She lives in London, and is kept busy on the reading circuit. This book is intended for poetry readers, students.