Martin Hayes has managed with Ox to create a new allegory that says a lot about our work lives that stays true to the tradition of poets and writers who under totalitarian regimes have had to create allegories to escape detection by control-freak authorities. It requires real ingenuity and perseverance to create a new vehicle for your voice and still be able to stay incisive and funny. 

– Fred Voss

“1984 for 2021: the fabulous Ox’s allegorical self-song sings to us of our own diminution; our sad expediency; our compromise and cowardice; of how we’ve allowed ourselves to become bystanders to our own enslavement. Martin Hayes gives us back the truest measure of England’s new identity. We should take note and be grateful.”

– Martin Malone

‘We need poets like Hayes now more than ever …  Important reading.’ 

– Andrew McMillan, Poetry Review 

‘Hayes is unique among British poets … thoroughly subversive … funny, shocking, fascinating, humanising.’ 

– Mistress Quickly’s Bed 

‘This is poetry like virtually no-one else in Britain is writing. It is funny, wise, sad, tragic and thoroughly memorable.’ 

– Alan Dent