Poetry
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.
Polly Atkin
Polly Atkin (FRSL) is a poet and non-fiction writer whose work focuses on nature, place and disability. Her poetry collections are Basic Nest Architecture (Seren Books, 2017), Much With Body (Seren Books, 2021) and Emergency Dream (Seren Books, 2026). Her non-fiction books include Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband, 2021), Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better (Sceptre, 2023) – Lakeland Book of the Year 2024 and longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2024 – and The Company of Owls (Elliott and Thompson, 2024). Her poetry and prose appears in various anthologies and academic editions.
She grew up in Nottingham then lived in East London for seven years before moving north to Cumbria. She has a phd from Lancaster University and has taught English and Creative Writing at QMUL, Lancaster University, and the Universities of Strathclyde and Cumbria. She now works as a freelancer from her home in the English Lake District, where she co-owns historic Grasmere bookshop Sam Read Bookseller.
Photo credit: Alex Muir Photography
