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Ambush at Still Lake
Caroline Bird's new poems show us the ambush of real life that occurs in the stillness after the happy ending. This is a collection about marriage, lesbian parenthood, addiction and recovery in which a recurring dream is playing a world where mums impale themselves on pogo-sticks, serial killers rattle around in basements, baby monitors are haunted by someone else's baby and, through it all, love stays and stays like a stationary rollercoaster that turns out to be the scariest, most thrilling ride in the amusement park.
Her editor welcomed the book in these 'It is bleak, repellent and hilarious in an American Psycho-ish way. Hectic and vivid.'
'Vegetable crisps. The words yawn like a black hole, sucking my eyes backwards into my head until I see my own brain glowing like a radioactive cauliflower.'
Her editor welcomed the book in these 'It is bleak, repellent and hilarious in an American Psycho-ish way. Hectic and vivid.'
'Vegetable crisps. The words yawn like a black hole, sucking my eyes backwards into my head until I see my own brain glowing like a radioactive cauliflower.'
84 pages, Paperback
Published August 29, 2024
7 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
Caroline Bird
18 books52 followersCaroline Bird was born in 1986 and grew up in Leeds before moving to London in 2001.
Caroline had been shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize twice in 2008 and 2010 and was the youngest writer on the list both times. She was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2014. She has also won an Eric Gregory Award (2002) and the Foyle Young Poet of the Year award two years running (1999, 2000), and was a winner of the Poetry London Competition in 2007, the Peterloo Poetry Competition in 2004, 2003 and 2002. Caroline was on the shortlist for Shell Woman Of The Future Awards 2011.
Caroline has had four collections of poetry published by Carcanet. Her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes (published in 2002 when she was only 15) is a topical, zesty and formally delightful collection of poems built on the traditions of fairy tale, fantasy and romance. Her second collection, Trouble Came to the Turnip, was published in September 2006 to critical acclaim. Watering Can, her third collection published in November 2009 celebrates life as an early twenty-something with comedy, wordplay and bright self-deprecation. Her fourth collection, The Hat-Stand Union, was described by Simon Armitage as ‘spring-loaded, funny, sad and deadly.’ Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, is due to be published July 2017.
Bird’s poems have been published in several anthologies and journals including Poetry Magazine, PN Review, Poetry Review and The North magazine. Several of her poems and a commissioned short story, Sucking Eggs, have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3. She was one of the five official poets at London Olympics 2012. Her poem, The Fun Palace, which celebrates the life and work of Joan Littlewood, is now erected on the Olympic Site outside the main stadium.
In recent years, Caroline has given poetry performances at Aldeburgh Festival, Latitude Festival, the Manchester Literature Festival, the Wellcome Collection (with Don Paterson,) the Royal Festival Hall (with Elaine Feinstein), St Hilda’s College (with Wendy Cope), the Wordsworth Trust (with Gillian Allnutt), Cheltenham Festival, and Ledbury Festival, amongst others.
Caroline Bird began writing plays as a teenager when she was the youngest ever member of the Royal Court Young Writer’s Programme, tutored by Simon Stephens. In 2011 Caroline was invited to take part in Sixty Six Books by the Bush Theatre. She wrote a piece inspired by Leviticus, directed by Peter Gill. In February 2012, her Beano-inspired musical, The Trial of Dennis the Menace was performed in the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre. She is currently writing the book and lyrics for Dennis the Menace the Musical for The Old Vic.
Caroline’s new version of The Trojan Women premiered at the Gate Theatre at the end of 2012 to wide critical acclaim. Caroline’s play Chamber Piece featured as Show 3 in the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith’s Secret Theatre season, premiering in October 2013, before touring the country. In 2013, Caroline was short-listed for Most Promising New Playwright at the Off-West-End Awards. In Christmas 2015, her re-twisted telling of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz premiered at Northern Stage, and received a four star review in The Times.
Caroline is also an enthusiastic leader of poetry workshops. In addition to working in primary and secondary schools, she is also a regular teacher at the Arvon Foundation. She is one of the writers-in-residence for the charity First Story. She is currently mentoring three exciting poets – Rachel Long, Emma Simon and Hilary Watson – for the Jerwood Arvon Mentorship Scheme.
Caroline had been shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize twice in 2008 and 2010 and was the youngest writer on the list both times. She was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2014. She has also won an Eric Gregory Award (2002) and the Foyle Young Poet of the Year award two years running (1999, 2000), and was a winner of the Poetry London Competition in 2007, the Peterloo Poetry Competition in 2004, 2003 and 2002. Caroline was on the shortlist for Shell Woman Of The Future Awards 2011.
Caroline has had four collections of poetry published by Carcanet. Her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes (published in 2002 when she was only 15) is a topical, zesty and formally delightful collection of poems built on the traditions of fairy tale, fantasy and romance. Her second collection, Trouble Came to the Turnip, was published in September 2006 to critical acclaim. Watering Can, her third collection published in November 2009 celebrates life as an early twenty-something with comedy, wordplay and bright self-deprecation. Her fourth collection, The Hat-Stand Union, was described by Simon Armitage as ‘spring-loaded, funny, sad and deadly.’ Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, is due to be published July 2017.
Bird’s poems have been published in several anthologies and journals including Poetry Magazine, PN Review, Poetry Review and The North magazine. Several of her poems and a commissioned short story, Sucking Eggs, have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3. She was one of the five official poets at London Olympics 2012. Her poem, The Fun Palace, which celebrates the life and work of Joan Littlewood, is now erected on the Olympic Site outside the main stadium.
In recent years, Caroline has given poetry performances at Aldeburgh Festival, Latitude Festival, the Manchester Literature Festival, the Wellcome Collection (with Don Paterson,) the Royal Festival Hall (with Elaine Feinstein), St Hilda’s College (with Wendy Cope), the Wordsworth Trust (with Gillian Allnutt), Cheltenham Festival, and Ledbury Festival, amongst others.
Caroline Bird began writing plays as a teenager when she was the youngest ever member of the Royal Court Young Writer’s Programme, tutored by Simon Stephens. In 2011 Caroline was invited to take part in Sixty Six Books by the Bush Theatre. She wrote a piece inspired by Leviticus, directed by Peter Gill. In February 2012, her Beano-inspired musical, The Trial of Dennis the Menace was performed in the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre. She is currently writing the book and lyrics for Dennis the Menace the Musical for The Old Vic.
Caroline’s new version of The Trojan Women premiered at the Gate Theatre at the end of 2012 to wide critical acclaim. Caroline’s play Chamber Piece featured as Show 3 in the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith’s Secret Theatre season, premiering in October 2013, before touring the country. In 2013, Caroline was short-listed for Most Promising New Playwright at the Off-West-End Awards. In Christmas 2015, her re-twisted telling of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz premiered at Northern Stage, and received a four star review in The Times.
Caroline is also an enthusiastic leader of poetry workshops. In addition to working in primary and secondary schools, she is also a regular teacher at the Arvon Foundation. She is one of the writers-in-residence for the charity First Story. She is currently mentoring three exciting poets – Rachel Long, Emma Simon and Hilary Watson – for the Jerwood Arvon Mentorship Scheme.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 29, 2024
(3.5) Caroline Bird has become one of my favourite contemporary poets over the past few years. Her verse is joyously cheeky and absurdist. A great way to sample it is via her selected poems, Rookie. This seventh collection is muted by age and circumstance – multiple weddings and a baby – but still hilarious in places. Instead of rehab or hospital as in In These Days of Prohibition, the setting is mostly the domestic sphere. Even here, bizarre things happen. The police burst in at 4 a.m. for no particular reason; search algorithms and the baby monitor go haywire. Her brother calls to deliver a paranoid rant (in “Up and at ’Em”), while Nannie Edna’s dying wish is to dangle her great-grandson from her apartment window (in “Last Rites”). The clinic calls to announce that their sperm donor was a serial killer – then ‘oops, wrong vial, never mind!’ A toddler son’s strange and megalomaniac demands direct their days. My two favourites were “Ants,” in which a kitchen infestation signals general chaos, and “The Frozen Aisle,” in which a couple scrambles to finish the grocery shop and get home to bed before a rare horny moment passes. A lesbian pulp fiction cover, mischievous wit and topics of addiction and queer parenting: this is not your average poetry.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
June 17, 2024
Just finished reading Ambush at Still Lake, after learning that Caroline Bird was coming out with a new publication a couple days ago! As a huge fan of her poetry, I couldn't wait to dive in and wade through the waves. This collection definitely made a splash 😆.
I will admit—I was a bit worried at first, because I realized I had set expectations of greatness in my own head. How could one follow up the genius poetry collection that is The Air Year, anyway? And is that even a fair or helpful way of thinking? Some of the poems in this collection, especially ones that just so happened to be at the beginning of the book, simply didn't speak to me—and that's okay! As the book progressed, I felt those very poems set the stage...or rather, (re)arranged the furniture, made the bed, and even laid out a strolling breakfast spread for all the other poems. Once I started bookmarking poems, I didn't stop. I feel like I've come upon glistening treasure with no expiration date! Or at least, a treasure that I can come back to whenever I feel the bounds of my own expiration.
Why do I love Caroline Bird's poems? What about her poems really speaks to me? For one, what draws me in the most is the element of whimsy. It's almost like reading those silly poems from childhood (dare I even name drop Shell Silverstein, or will that bastardize my entire review?). However, Bird excels at harnessing that sense of whimsy and playfulness of language to invite the reader to explore deeper themes and meanings. From sex, intimacy, and relationships to recovering from addiction to raising a child, to real life shit, etc.—I really, really love how Bird approaches these topics with a lightness that still honors the complexity of the situations, emotions, and feelings involved.
What else do I love about Caroline Bird's poems? She has a real knack for both cultivating vivid imagery and knowing just when to use witty, cunning language to great effect.
I could go on here! Ultimately, I give this publication 5 stars. While some poems feel a little overripe at times, the majority of them shine brightly. This book felt like a crescendo, too, which was super gratifying. And hey, who the hell am I to say that some poems felt overripe? Perhaps the perceived condition of being "overripe" actually contributes value to this collection and to the underlying themes it explores. I really feel that! Perhaps this collection of perhaps is actually self-fertilizing, with rich compost that nourishes the fruit of the author's work. And given just one of my favorite poems in this collection, "Vial," that's a funny analogy on which to land.
Okay, I'll stop now...😆. Maybe in another review I'll share with you how I've used Caroline Bird's poetry to help p*rn performers around the world feel seen, connected, and empowered? Oh honey, that's for another day. Read this book first!
I will admit—I was a bit worried at first, because I realized I had set expectations of greatness in my own head. How could one follow up the genius poetry collection that is The Air Year, anyway? And is that even a fair or helpful way of thinking? Some of the poems in this collection, especially ones that just so happened to be at the beginning of the book, simply didn't speak to me—and that's okay! As the book progressed, I felt those very poems set the stage...or rather, (re)arranged the furniture, made the bed, and even laid out a strolling breakfast spread for all the other poems. Once I started bookmarking poems, I didn't stop. I feel like I've come upon glistening treasure with no expiration date! Or at least, a treasure that I can come back to whenever I feel the bounds of my own expiration.
Why do I love Caroline Bird's poems? What about her poems really speaks to me? For one, what draws me in the most is the element of whimsy. It's almost like reading those silly poems from childhood (dare I even name drop Shell Silverstein, or will that bastardize my entire review?). However, Bird excels at harnessing that sense of whimsy and playfulness of language to invite the reader to explore deeper themes and meanings. From sex, intimacy, and relationships to recovering from addiction to raising a child, to real life shit, etc.—I really, really love how Bird approaches these topics with a lightness that still honors the complexity of the situations, emotions, and feelings involved.
What else do I love about Caroline Bird's poems? She has a real knack for both cultivating vivid imagery and knowing just when to use witty, cunning language to great effect.
I could go on here! Ultimately, I give this publication 5 stars. While some poems feel a little overripe at times, the majority of them shine brightly. This book felt like a crescendo, too, which was super gratifying. And hey, who the hell am I to say that some poems felt overripe? Perhaps the perceived condition of being "overripe" actually contributes value to this collection and to the underlying themes it explores. I really feel that! Perhaps this collection of perhaps is actually self-fertilizing, with rich compost that nourishes the fruit of the author's work. And given just one of my favorite poems in this collection, "Vial," that's a funny analogy on which to land.
Okay, I'll stop now...😆. Maybe in another review I'll share with you how I've used Caroline Bird's poetry to help p*rn performers around the world feel seen, connected, and empowered? Oh honey, that's for another day. Read this book first!
January 6, 2025
“I remembered an article about a serial killer / with multiple personality disorder / who’d passed a polygraph by truly, / in that moment, believing himself / to be a different person altogether.” Halfway through Caroline Bird’s brilliant new poetry collection, Ambush at Still Lake, for some reason I felt like reading the back-cover blurb (I often don’t bother — I like the mystery), and was struck by the aptness of the description there, how these poems “show us the ambush of real life that occurs in the stillness after the happy ending”. Apt not just for Bird’s inventive and excellent poems but for life itself, how unexpected it can be even when we think we’ve learnt exactly how to expect it. The third poem, ‘Last Rites’, is a deliciously absurd prose poem about a woman whose dying wish — persuasively argued for — is to “dangle her great-grandson from her apartment window”. The title poem depicts two people, maybe outlaw lovers on the run, finally caught by authorities and gunned down, “dying forever, always almost home”. The poems here often teeter between thoughtful and funny, like these lines from ‘What’s Your Poison?’: “Then the rain stopped // and she collapsed, shaking like a vibrator let loose / on a hard tiled floor.” Or these lines from the zany and vivid ‘Targeted Ads’: “Then I woke up. My wife said I kept mumbling / the tagline over and over. Fucking tech giants, man, / targeting our dreams. Why else would I be crying / every night for no reason, reaching out, repeating // *smells like gnome, smells like gnome, smells like gnome*”. Other favourites include ‘A Shaken Leaf’, ‘Up and at ‘Em’, ‘The Brides’, and ‘The Wedding Disco’, but the whole collection is stellar, maybe Bird’s best yet. “‘I know,’ he said, ‘Isn’t that extraordinary?’ / and we danced together, reminiscing / under a marquee of stars.”
June 1, 2024
I loved 'The Air Year', which was Caroline Bird's last poetry collection and I loved this one too.
I should say, as I always say when writing about poetry, that I don't really know how to analyse poetry on a technical level. I can recognise a sonnet when I see one. But poetry for me succeeds or fails with it effective use of language. And by effective I'm not talking about the technicalities I should reiterate that. Effective for me is the sense of emotional impact. The sparkle of a phrase that has caught the light. Even in a poem that I might not entirely get. And yes, I know tearing phrases or lines without context from whole poems borders on vandalism but it is often those that I remember as much as whole poems.
An example is this section from 'We've All Been There':
I pictured them lounging in the background
of my gravest errors, mouthing 'go on'
like extras in a recurring dream,
my chorus line of negligent angels,
jaded from centuries of witnessing
firstborns slain on slabs, palpable darkness,
locust-swarms thing as bombproof doors, who now
mooch the earth, shrugging their wings, handing out
little business cards printed with halos
to humans bad enough to forgive them."
A bonus point for the use of the word 'mooch'.
I liked most of the poems but favourites were 'Ants', 'Last Rites' (which had a taste of the Daniil Kharms about it), 'Ambush at Still Lake', 'Stick Parent', 'The Best Room', 'Downer', 'The Murder House', 'For Your Eyes Only' (which ends wonderfully), 'How Was Everything' and 'We've All Been There'. There was one I didn't really like, but I might when I re-visit it.
I will re-visit this collection. And I might go and re-read The Air Year now.
I should say, as I always say when writing about poetry, that I don't really know how to analyse poetry on a technical level. I can recognise a sonnet when I see one. But poetry for me succeeds or fails with it effective use of language. And by effective I'm not talking about the technicalities I should reiterate that. Effective for me is the sense of emotional impact. The sparkle of a phrase that has caught the light. Even in a poem that I might not entirely get. And yes, I know tearing phrases or lines without context from whole poems borders on vandalism but it is often those that I remember as much as whole poems.
An example is this section from 'We've All Been There':
I pictured them lounging in the background
of my gravest errors, mouthing 'go on'
like extras in a recurring dream,
my chorus line of negligent angels,
jaded from centuries of witnessing
firstborns slain on slabs, palpable darkness,
locust-swarms thing as bombproof doors, who now
mooch the earth, shrugging their wings, handing out
little business cards printed with halos
to humans bad enough to forgive them."
A bonus point for the use of the word 'mooch'.
I liked most of the poems but favourites were 'Ants', 'Last Rites' (which had a taste of the Daniil Kharms about it), 'Ambush at Still Lake', 'Stick Parent', 'The Best Room', 'Downer', 'The Murder House', 'For Your Eyes Only' (which ends wonderfully), 'How Was Everything' and 'We've All Been There'. There was one I didn't really like, but I might when I re-visit it.
I will re-visit this collection. And I might go and re-read The Air Year now.
February 19, 2025
Caroline Bird writes hilarious and devastating poems, with a keen ear for language and an instinct for ending her poems at exactly the right place. Her poems feel effortless but must take tremendous skill and attention to write. That being said, this is not her strongest collection: there are some really memorable poems here, but they are mixed among lesser pieces that don't earn their place.
February 19, 2025
every morning I am kicked out
of dream bed
and wake up in real bed
with your back to me
The best poetry collection I’ve read in a long time!! Hilarious and sad, which just makes the hilarity sadder and the sadness more hilarious.
of dream bed
and wake up in real bed
with your back to me
The best poetry collection I’ve read in a long time!! Hilarious and sad, which just makes the hilarity sadder and the sadness more hilarious.
April 26, 2025
This was a fabulous collection. It’s quite strange, mad, surreal with amazing imagery and speculative elements. I’ve nominated it for the Elgin Award (SFPA sfpoetry.org), because I think it qualifies. Let’s hope the chair this year agrees!
March 21, 2026
Really enjoyed this collection, it felt very original. My favourites were definitely 'Dream Job' and 'Stick Parent', I tended to enjoy what felt like added flexibility in the poems about parenthood/Bird's child - 'Dream Job' really leaned into the silliness which I loved.
Read
September 4, 2024Think speculative fiction but in verse, with Bird’s trademark humor. I personally didn’t take to this collection as much as The Air Year, though.
October 13, 2024
Never, ever boring. Always a hoot and pushes me as a reader just enough to open up my head in new ways. Thanks, Caroline Bird!
March 20, 2025
so cool, brilliantly written with such fun and absurd images but also very heartfelt. caroline bird is very much an influence on my own poetry.
August 8, 2025
Really funny!
September 4, 2025
Sick. Saving these to discuss with my friend:
•Stick Parent
•What's your Poison?
•Pilgrims
•The Only Window
•The Best Room
•Downer
•We've All Been There
•Stick Parent
•What's your Poison?
•Pilgrims
•The Only Window
•The Best Room
•Downer
•We've All Been There
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews