Poetry
Category: Individual Collections, Poetry
Number of pages: 68
ISBN: 9781781725269
Publication date: October 21, 2019
Price: £9.99
Out of stock
Winner of Wales Book of the Year Poetry Award 2020
Footnotes to Water imagines a river as a transverse section, cutting through urban and rural spaces, connecting places that are themselves in flux. Zoë Skoulding follows the mysterious path of the culverted Afon Adda in Bangor, close to where she lives, as it draws her into conversations with the city as well as with the sound of the river itself, half-heard under the metal plates of the observation chambers along its route. It leads her to the Bièvre, a lost Parisian stream that once ran through streets of tanneries and past the Gobelins tapestry factory, where the quality of a famous red dye was attributed to the river’s polluted water. Following literary traces as well as exploring landscapes, a sequence on hefting sheep links the two rivers, extending the idea of local habitat or cynefin to encompass the interweaving lives of different cultures and species.
Watch Zoë read alongside the other two poets shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2020 on our Youtube Channel here:
Zoë Skoulding
Zoë Skoulding is a poet whose interests include translation, performance, collaboration and literary criticism. She is Reader in the School of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics at Bangor University. She is the author of a number of poetry collections including The Museum of Disappearing Sounds (Seren), which was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award, and Remains of a Future City (Seren), which was long-listed for Wales Book of the Year. In 2018 she was a recipient of the Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors for her body of work in poetry. Her new collection Footnotes to Water is available now.
“This quiet collection shines with Skoulding’s finesse – she plays with shape, form, punctuation and alliteration to paint an impression of rivers’ movements against your skull.”
Judy Darley, SkyLightRain
‘…poems that give more each time they are read’
London Grip
‘Skoulding’s poems span time and space, giving a depth and complexity that unnerve the senses. Her themes have a rare range, not simply providing a dark view on human greed and destruction but also celebrating cultures and landscapes, lightening the pessimism. Wales infuses her work, an infectious enthusiasm for the country’s heritage and passion for languages. The translator’s ability to bridge cultures makes Footnotes to Water an exceptional collection’
DURA
