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In this special Poetry Book Club edition of The Verb, Jo Shapcott discusses her 2010 Costa award-winning  Collection ‘Of Mutability’. Jo takes Ian and our small invited audience of poets and poetry fans through some of the themes and ideas that went into the book, beginning with the title. Jo loves the word ‘Mutability’ and all it contains. A word most often used to refer to decay, Jo wants to celebrate that it also means new growth and ‘Green Shoots’. The title is taken from an artwork by Helen Chadwick, whose influence runs through the collection. Jo explains that she always been interested in the body, and sees it as a site of much drama and the collection was written partly in response to her treatment for cancer, an illness that gave her the ability to write about the body on a non-personal, but rather cellular level. The collection is shot through with scientific language, which is used to add light, texture and sound to her poetry. For Jo Shapcott, noticing things makes us human and ultimately the most important quality for a poet is curiosity.