The Visitations

by Kathryn Simmonds

Luminous and searching, tender and witty, The Visitations develops and deepens the themes that emerged in Kathryn Simmonds' acclaimed debut, Sunday at the Skin Launderette. Here are poems where the physical and metaphysical meet, where questions of new motherhood are set against those of faith and the larger conundrum of how to live. The tone is often simultaneously satirical and elegiac and the collection abounds with sudden moments of strange a lime tree strikes up a conversation; a life coach finds an old passport; an infant teeters on the brink of speech. 'A wonderful lazy music which never puts a foot wrong, like dancing with Gertrude Lawrence to a tune by Cole Porter.' - Hugo Williams

Genres: Poetry

63 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2013

About the author

Kathryn Simmonds’ poetry collection Sunday at the Skin Launderette won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.

Her short stories have been published in a number of magazines, including The London Magazine and The Barcelona Review, and broadcast on Radio 4. Her second poetry collection is The Visitations (2013) and she was the first poet-in-residence at The Charles Causley Trust in 2013/14. Seren published her first novel Love and Fallout in 2014.

Reviews

[Nigel Haywood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kathryn Symons is an excellent poet and these are enjoyable poems, in which everyday life - its joys, its annoyances, its mysteries - are explored in technically confident, pared down verse. An absolute joy.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucid, beautiful writing.