The notion of a public dream encapsulates Leviston’s ability to conjure emotionally charged, private and complex experiences in language as clear as a glass of water. The combination of technical mastery and fresh, unrehearsed sensibility is what makes this collection so exciting. — The Times

Public Dream is a first book of real interest, not least because it is a book with an abiding preoccupation by a poet who is both formally adept and who needs to find out what language can do for her… [This is] a lucid and timely first book. — The Observer

[Leviston] has the enviable knack of making the dense and complex seem effortless, offering subtle conclusions with an irresistible lightness of touch in language as refreshing as a sorbet. — The Guardian

‘Humbles’, the visceral opener to Frances Leviston’s debut collection, recalls masterpieces by Robin Robertson and William Stafford. That it survives such comparisons is evidence of how good a writer Leviston already is. [C]ertainly an outstanding new talent. — The Independent.

From this starting point the book never looks back: you know what philosophical weight and confident vocabulary (‘unputbackable’) Leviston can muster. Occasionally she draws on a descriptive technique that invites comparison with Seamus Heaney in its virtuosity… This is the best first book I have read for years. — Bernard O’Donoghue, Poetry London