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Friday Poem – ‘Spring’ by Paul Deaton

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Spring’ by Paul Deaton. Paul’s debut collection A Watchful Astronomy (Seren, 2017) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

A Watchful Astronomy is a thoughtful poetry collection by a well-regarded author who has published his work in national magazines like The SpectatorLondon Magazine and the PN Review. It has a distinctive flavour. The author is a realist and a formalist, preferring simple, accurate language and use of formal meter. This makes for unusually clear and accessible work. A powerful underlying current of emotion also drives these poems and is contained and restrained by the more austere formal qualities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A Watchful Astronomy is available on the Seren website: £9.99

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy from us.

Watch Paul reading his poem ‘That Bang’ from A Watchful Astronomy.

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Friday Poem – ‘A Watchful Astronomy’ by Paul Deaton

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the moon landings, this week’s Friday Poem is ‘A Watchful Astronomy’ by Paul Deaton from his collection of the same name, which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

A Watchful Astronomy by Paul Deaton is a thoughtful poetry collection by a well-regarded author who has published his work in national magazines like The Spectator, London Magazine and the PN Review. It has a distinctive flavour. The author is a realist and a formalist, preferring simple, accurate language and use of formal meter. This makes for unusually clear and accessible work. A powerful underlying current of emotion also drives these poems and is contained and restrained by the more austere formal qualities.

 

 

 

 

 A Watchful Astronomy is available on the Seren website: £9.99

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy from us.

 

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Friday Poem – ‘Spring Tide’, Paul Deaton

The clocks jump forward this weekend, signalling the start of British Summer Time – but before that, we have Paul Deaton’s ‘Spring Tide’ as our Friday Poem this week.

Paul Deaton A Watchful AstronomyPaul Deaton’s debut, A Watchful Astronomy, is a book of beautifully clear and powerful poems. A PBS Recommendation, the collection is haunted by the ghost of the author’s father, a figure that appears throughout the collection as an overbearing, even threatening presence, embodied in glowering mountain ranges, in icy blasts of weather, in bits of bleak, monosyllabic dialogue. Cutting through this harsh imagery are poems of reflection and contemplation that celebrate the weather and the seasons. ‘Spring Tide’ is one such poem.

 

Friday Poem Spring Tide Paul Deaton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Watchful Astronomy is available from the Seren website: £9.99

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy from us.

 

 

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Friday Poem – ‘December’, Paul Deaton

Friday Poem December Paul Deaton

Our Friday Poem this week, as we enter the final month of 2018, is ‘December’ by Paul Deaton.

Paul Deaton A Watchful Astronomy‘December’ is taken from Paul Deaton’s Poetry Book Society-recommended debut, A Watchful Astronomy. Deaton is a realist and a formalist, preferring simple, accurate language and use of formal meter. This makes for unusually clear and accessible work. A powerful underlying current of emotion also drives these poems and is contained and restrained by the more austere formal qualities.

‘Each poem in this collection is like a little torchlight … I felt like it totally wrapped me up as a reader, and I really couldn’t put it down.’ – Jen Campbell

 

 

Friday Poem December Paul Deaton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Watchful Astronomy is available from the Seren website: £9.99

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy from us.

 

 

 

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Friday Poem – ‘Lear Father’, Paul Deaton

Our Friday Poem this week is ‘Lear Father’ from Paul Deaton’s recently published debut, A Watchful Astronomy.

Paul Deaton A Watchful AstronomyWelsh-raised and Bristol-based, Paul Deaton has produced a debut collection full of poems that are quietly precise, yet full of powerful emotion.
Deaton’s poems are finely attuned and alert to the tensions in relationships, partly attributable to a difficult father figure, ‘like a wounded bear’, who haunts much of this book – including our featured poem today, ‘Lear Father’. Nature is also a guiding presence in this collection, and is often embodied by a wintery landscape.
A Watchful Astronomy is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Winter 2017.

 

Friday Poem Lear Father Paul Deaton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Watchful Astronomy is available from the Seren website: £9.99

Join our free Book Club for 20% off every book you buy from us.