Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak by Rishi Dastidar blooms with poems determined to do the generous work of love and hope - using the power of language to make change, express desire, and imagine the world as we'd like it to be. Dastidar's poems, with their deft skill in moving from the surreal to the profound, are a perfect burst of joy in challenging times, effervescent and seriously playful, romancing cityscapes and bursting with wit.

POETRY BOOK OF THE MONTH, The Observer, March 2026

Rishi Dastidar's third collection, Neptune's Projects, was longlisted for the Laurel Prize, and a poem from it was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024. He is also editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press), and co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika's Poetry Kitchen (Corsair). He is chair of Wasafiri, the magazine of international contemporary writing, and a trustee of the Wordsworth Trust.