Books Books
Category: Ebooks, Individual Collections, Poetry
Number of pages: 72
ISBN: 9781781726266
Publication date: June 21, 2021
Price: £9.99
Category: Ebooks, Individual Collections, Poetry
Number of pages: 72
ISBN: 9781781726273
Publication date: June 21, 2021
Price: £7.99
Out of stock
Auscultation means listening and specifically, in medicine, listening to sounds that come from the body’s internal organs. If listening is a central theme of this collection, it is also about being heard. Ilse Pedler is poet of breadth and depth. There are poems about waiting rooms and surgical instruments, about crisis calls, about overhearing farmers and pet owners and colleagues. There are poems about surviving a stern childhood and a heartbreaking sequence about being a stepmother. This is a compelling set of poems from a striking new voice.
“In this unique and utterly original collection, Ilse Pedler explores the brutal and beautiful world of being a vet and a stepmother. This is a book filled with blood, but also with air and light, a book of hard-won knowledge, a book that is both pragmatic and tender, about listening and being listened to, and the types of care we give and receive.” – Kim Moore
“‘Listen’, listen closely, these poems ask. Draw near and pay intimate attention to the minute beats and actions that surround and connect us – those of animals, other humans, and the environment. As a practising veterinary surgeon ‘at the warmth’s core’, Pedler explores the daily dramas and dilemmas of the consulting room, the operating theatre, the field, and brings in wider themes of scientific knowledge, family, fairytales, and belonging. The precision in her language matches the precision in her noticing, as we recognise how ‘our bodies are never silent’ and she helps us marvel at ‘the soft persistence of tissue’.” – Heidi Williamson
Ilse Pedler reads her poem ‘Miss Freak’s Whelping Forceps’
Watch the full online launch of Auscultation here:
Ilse Pedler
Ilse Pedler is a poet and veterinary surgeon. She lives and works in The Lake District trying to juggle writing with the unpredictability of sick animals. She has also been a Morris dancer for over 30 years and no longer tries to hide it.
She has had poems published previously in many magazines including, Stand, Magma, Poetry News, and several anthologies. She was shortlisted in The Rialto Nature Poetry competition in 2014 and 2015 and in the Bridport prize 2016 and commended in the Hippocrates 2017. She is the winner of the 2015 Mslexia Pamphlet Competition. Her pamphlet, The Dogs That Chase Bicycle Wheels was published by Seren in March 2016. She was long listed in the National Poetry Competition in 2018. She lives and works as a Veterinary Surgeon in Grange over Sands near Kendal. Her first collection, Auscultation, was published by Seren in 2021
“I bring my experience as a practising veterinary surgeon to my poetry, writing about our relationships with animals and how they impact on our lives. In my poems I let you into the secrets of the consulting room, operating theatre and farm; the equipment, the techniques and the rituals and hierarchy. You are permitted access to the functioning of bodies and their failings and invited to wonder at insides laid bare during surgical procedures.
In Auscultation, I also explore the idea of listening and being listened to through poems about motherhood and my experience of being a step mother. The fairy tales of my childhood found their way into some of these poems; queens, castles and three wishes interweaving with the contemporary challenges of step parenting and blended families. In these poems I interrogate the importance of the types of care we give and receive.”
“To read Ilse Pedler’s collection is to be fully awoken to the concept of our ‘stewardship’ of the Earth … compassion, courage and conciliation are the hallmarks of this lovely, unaffected and affecting first collection.”
Kate Ashton, London Grip
“Auscultation is Ilse Pedler’s first full collection, many of the poems inspired by her work as a vet including ‘Miss Freak’s Whelping Forceps’ first published in Butcher’s Dog. It is a fine example of these unsentimental, accomplished poems … As the title of the collection implies, these poems are all about listening and being listened to but Pedler also has a fine ear for language, its musicality and cadences. This is showcased in the pantoum ‘Behind City Doors’ and the sestina ‘The Importance of Air’. This poet knows her craft and is at her best when she experiments with form such as in ‘The silence is’, ‘Auscultation’, ‘Voicemail’ which make use of white space and allow the poems’ content to be reflected in form.”
Caroline Bracken, Nation Cymru
