On adjoining farms, two high school kids bond after finding a foal injured and trapped in the barbed wire that borders their properties. This is a poignant verse novel, tinged with the sadness that comes with loss, loneliness, pain and trauma. The novel begins with Sam escaping the shouting between his parents by walking to the farm’s boundary. Sam’s parents’ relationship has suffered since the death of Sam’s older brother. At the boundary fence, Sam sees his neighbour, Julia. He knew her when they were very young but, as they’ve grown, hasn’t spent time with her. She’s standing next to the injured foal. Together, they tease the barbed wire from around the foal’s neck and begin to nurse it back to health.

Julia’s home life is little different from Sam’s. Her mother has left; her father drinks and abuses her. At school, Sam’s ‘friend’, Alex, bullies him. When Alex insults Julia, Sam stands up to him. The foal offers them a means of learning to care – both for it, each other and themselves. Sam and Julia’s relationship blossoms but when Julia’s abuse worsens, she is sent away to live with relatives. At home, Sam’s parents’ arguments ease as they decide to live apart, and their focus returns to Sam.

The deeper emotional language needed to explore Sam’s experience is perfectly provided by verse, with added emphasis provided by cleverly placed enjambments: ‘in the fading light/the words for forgetting/are like burning leaves/as they fall against her hair’. The Foal in the Wire as a story that is raw and uncompromising, and beautifully realised.

Reviewed by Bob Moore
Age Guide 14+

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robbie Coburn is an Australian poet and author of the young adult verse novel The Foal in the Wire (Lothian/Hachette Australia, 2025).

His other publications include the poetry collection And I Could Not Have Hurt You (Kiddiepunk, 2023), which was on Dennis Cooper’s Mine For Yours: Favorites of 2023 list, and the chapbook Spur (Filthy Loot, 2025).

Visit his website here.