American Mules by Martina Evans Vala Thorodds combining a troubadour’s musicality with

combining a troubadour’s musicality with full grasp of the moment

taken mostly from the Odyssey – about a minor character

looks on with a mixture of pride and worry

presents Tomlinson to a new generation of  readers

American Mules by Martina Evans Vala Thorodds combining a troubadour’s musicality withMartina Evans's eponymous Mules are shoes brought to her as an exotic gift by an American relation. They suggest to her the possibility of a very different world, one which the poems' speakers set out to explore. As happens often in her poems, new and invented experiences throw into relief Evans's own intensely lived experiences: the radiography units of hospitals and their merciless work culture, in which the speakers must survive; a London densely