In the title poem of Katherine Meehan's debut collection, Dame Julie Andrews' Botched Vocal Cord Surgery and Other Poems, the poet presents an examination of losses, failures, and griefs, all of them tempered by an unusual humour. Grounded in the particularities of location, these poems wander between urban and rural spaces, from Los Angeles and Appalachia to the English home counties. Glass eels, Grendel's mother and a host of nameless 'losers' are given voice as the collection explores the tension between the futility of the speech act and its necessity.