Shadow Dispatches by Polly Atkin

by Polly Atkin

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.

Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Polly Atkin is an English poet and academic.

She lives in Cumbria and teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde. She has published widely in magazines and literary journals, and her pamphlet, Bone Song, was shortlisted for the 2009 Michael Marks Pamphlet Award.

Her second pamphlet, Shadow Dispatches, won the 2012 Mslexia Pamphlet Prize and is published by Seren.