Polly Atkin Livres

These atmospheric and keenly observational poems offer us a slant perspective on everyday things and events: the ugliness of an elderly mute swan; or a group of migraine sufferers forming a fellowship and holding regular meetings. Poems addressing the complexity of contemporary relationships sit alongside those riffing on traditional themes, even – in the case of ‘Hermes Enodios’ and ‘Potnia Theron’ – revisiting classical gods. These are poems embedded in particular landscapes, in which the real becomes surreal and vice versa. Together they form a poetry which is deeply involved with the natural world – concerned with deer in fields and jays in woods – but which is not in any way removed, encompassing email, photo-shop, and fighter jets.

In Much With Body , Polly Atkin displays her gifts as a vibrant and provocative contemporary nature poet. The dramatic landscapes of the Lake District and the diaries of Dorothy Wordsworth give rise to these poems. A life-long negotiation with a set of chronic health conditions brings urgency to her warning we can’t expect nature to save us.

Set against the backdrop of the Lake District, the narrative explores the deep connection between Polly Atkin and the owls that inhabit her surroundings. It serves as a reflective meditation on the importance of listening amidst the chaos of modern life, capturing the beauty and serenity of nature during autumn nights. Atkin's lyrical prose invites readers to embrace quiet moments and discover the profound impact of the natural world.

Dorothy Wordsworth is well known as the author of the Alfoxden and Grasmere Journals (1798-1803) and as the sister of the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. She is widely praised for her nature writing and is often remembered as a woman of great physical vitality. Less well known, however, is that Dorothy became seriously ill in 1829 and was mostly housebound for the last twenty years of her life. Her personal letters and unpublished journals from this time paint a portrait of a compassionate and creative woman who made her sickroom into a garden for herself and her pet robin and who finally grew to call herself a poet. They also reveal how vital Dorothy was to her brother's success, and the closeness they shared as siblings. By re-examining her life through the perspective of her illness, this biography allows Dorothy Wordsworth to step out from her brother's shadow and back into her own life story.

This striking debut collection from Seren by Polly Atkin is full of vigorously intelligent, lively and entertaining poetry. Already a prize-winner in a number of competitions, Atkin weaves dense metaphors and sensitive observations of the natural world into her original poems. She is often inspired by the Lake District, where she has lived for a decade.

A raw and exquisite meditation on chronic illness and our place within the landscape, from prize-winning poet Polly Atkin