Jane Routh Livres

A new collection from Jane Routh, author of Circumnavigation, shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and Teach Yourself Mapmaking, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.After lockdowns have swept calendars clear, leaf-fall, early sunrise and gales are Jane Routh's measures of time, as she goes about her tasks in the hill pasture and woodlands where she has the luck to live.With sharp, lyrical description and down-to earth understanding, her poems consider the flora and fauna around her, formative moments and lifespans – as well as the dead who won't be forgotten. Her elegant and informed writing conveys a sense of belonging in a particular place and the care for its future, carrying a universal resonance.

Jane Routh's fourth full collection combines vivid, musical writing and acute perception of the natural world. Ranging across land and land art, birds, buildings and bodies, roads, trees and winds, her distinctive poems investigate memory and the changes which overtake us all. These poems listen to the nights, but also to the darker places in our lives and - in the face of environmental and personal loss - celebrate the moments of resilience "that keep mortality at bay".

In the late '60s, two young men embark on a voyage which not only takes them around the world, but starts them off up life's incline which is, at times, steep, sometimes poignant, often amusing and frequently bizarre. They meet a disparate array of musicians, cruise the world, witness misfortune and death, have their instruments stolen, borrow a sports car, suffer a libation of Alaskan sea water, upset various policemen, see depravity at its worst and are paid for their trouble. They encounter two honest agents at the same time (imagine that), turn down the maiden voyage of the QE2 and move to Palm Springs on the toss of a coin, where Slim marries and John meets Steph. Slim flies to San Diego in a 'colander', they drive to Vancouver, repair their Volkswagen by the freeway, visit the Flying Scotsman in San Francisco and thumb a lift home on Oriana.