″If Possible: Cavafy Poems" was published by from Calder Valley Poetry in 2018 and was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award. 'I never started out to be a love poet' Parks states in the preface to his "Love Poems 1979-2009" - 'there's never been a point where I've set myself an agenda or a strategy. The love poems have just happened, appearing out of the blue and prompted by circumstances. They called and I responded'.""'  "Surely one of the finest poets writing in these islands." Ian Pople "Manchester Review"  "Reading a poem by Ian Parks is like hearing your name spoken in the din of a public place - you hear it regardless of the background noise." Peter Dale. "Ian Parks has an instantly recognisable voice: spare, lyrical, memorable and intense. Whatever subject he addresses - historical, political, romantic - he transforms through the sheer force of his poetic identity." Donald Davie. Reviewing "Shell Island" Ben Ramm ("The Liberal Magazine") wrote: "Ian Parks is the rarest of contemporary poets - a skilled versifier, respectful of his craft, and buoyed up rather than weighed down by its tradition. These poems demonstrate a remarkable aural sensitivity and control. Parks is finely attuned to the landscape's variance, its measured pulse, its echo and persisting memory. Here are sagacious, elegiac verses, at once visceral and tender, local and possessive of an organic unity: this is an impressive collection from an important poet." Reviewing "The Landing Stage" in "Acumen" William Bedford wrote: 'This could be Eliot, but it isn't... it could be Frost, but again it isn't. Parks has gone beyond his influences. Politics is a moral passion in "The Landing Stage" and love the theatre of our anguish. This fine poet is hinting at everything we need to know to make us human.'