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The Remedies
Katharine Towers' second collection is a book of small wonders. From a house drowning in roses to crickets on an August day, from Nerval's lobster to the surrealism of flower remedies, these poems explore the fragility of our relationship with the natural world. Towers also shows us what that relationship can aspire to be: each poem attunes us to another aspect of that world, and shows what strange connections might be revealed when we properly attend to it. The Remedies is a lyric, unforgettable collection which offers just the spiritual assuagement its title promises, and shows Towers emerging as a major poetic talent.
- GenresPoetry
64 pages, Paperback
First published August 11, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 1, 2023
A beautiful collection.
April 14, 2018
Finished on a rainy Saturday morning and so glad I did. It was the perfect place and time for me to read these beautiful compilations.
December 30, 2017
Some of these short poems are very beautiful. Divided into three sections, the poems in this short book muse on nature and many explore loss. The first section is the most successful: opening with an imaginative poem about a house overgrow with roses and a lost father, the poems feel fresh and precise. The middle section, for which the book is titled, was the least successful for me. The author describes plants used in traditional remedies and imagines these plants have the disease they are supposed to cure. Thus, hornbeams struggle with inertia, or clematis dreams too much. I found these short poems trite and struggled to discover a deeper meaning in them. I tried to sit with the poems in the final section for some time to allow them to yield their meaning, but again I couldn't find it. That being said, the author writes with skill and precision, and there were some poems that really worked, such as Ballet, which I quote below in full.
Ballet
Balanced on a single note, she isn't real.
She'll break without music,
spilling tulle and sequins at our feet
like a sunburnt lizard, slinking
from the mosaic of her brilliant skin
and hurrying away to hide.
Ballet
Balanced on a single note, she isn't real.
She'll break without music,
spilling tulle and sequins at our feet
like a sunburnt lizard, slinking
from the mosaic of her brilliant skin
and hurrying away to hide.
April 30, 2018
As beautiful as some of these individual poems are, The Remedies never really takes off or offers anything startlingly different. With the cannon behind it, writing original nature themed poetry can't be easy, and Towers tries to inject her collection with fresh and interesting ideas. The poems here are all fine, well crafted examples of the genre, but the not much stands out. It is divided into three, only the middle one named ('Flower Remedies') while the first and third are simply numbered. The first two, however, share a sense of giving voice to nature; the first part is voiced by elements of the natural world and the second are natural medicinal flowers speaking in the first person, afflicted by whatever ailments they are supposed to cure. The final third is more sporadic and opaque, almost the poems that didn't fit elsewhere.
In fact the opening poems are the best. 'The Roses' starts with some lovely, evocative images of a house being pulled down by flowers, leaving the writer's father lying untouched in his death bed. 'The Grasshopper' shows Towers' talent for capturing a piece of nature in words. 'Childhood' speaks softly and sadly to the memory of exploring nature. 'August' matches the beauty of changing seasons with the ache of time passing by. Some, however, like 'Daisies' try too hard in their personification of nature and sound forced. While the idea for the remedial poems in the middle of the collection is interesting, it doesn't always work and they lack the strange, stark beauty of some of the earlier poems. Written in the first person, they often risk sounding like pretty riddles.
There are highlights in the later half of this collection too. 'Willow' works, and balances the human voice with the natural image. Others like 'Holly' and 'Dog Rose' come across as clumsy. In the final third there are some darker, more intense poems that attach really emotion to the natural imagery - 'The Window', 'Sequioa' and 'First Frost' are beautiful and tragic. The final poem, 'for example', contains a wealth of sadness and hope in its brief lines, showing just how good Towers can be. Overall, however, the collection doesn't amaze, restricted to a few moments of wonder. 4
In fact the opening poems are the best. 'The Roses' starts with some lovely, evocative images of a house being pulled down by flowers, leaving the writer's father lying untouched in his death bed. 'The Grasshopper' shows Towers' talent for capturing a piece of nature in words. 'Childhood' speaks softly and sadly to the memory of exploring nature. 'August' matches the beauty of changing seasons with the ache of time passing by. Some, however, like 'Daisies' try too hard in their personification of nature and sound forced. While the idea for the remedial poems in the middle of the collection is interesting, it doesn't always work and they lack the strange, stark beauty of some of the earlier poems. Written in the first person, they often risk sounding like pretty riddles.
There are highlights in the later half of this collection too. 'Willow' works, and balances the human voice with the natural image. Others like 'Holly' and 'Dog Rose' come across as clumsy. In the final third there are some darker, more intense poems that attach really emotion to the natural imagery - 'The Window', 'Sequioa' and 'First Frost' are beautiful and tragic. The final poem, 'for example', contains a wealth of sadness and hope in its brief lines, showing just how good Towers can be. Overall, however, the collection doesn't amaze, restricted to a few moments of wonder. 4
July 19, 2017
Intricate, detailed, short poems
February 24, 2018
Some lovely poems, a little whimsical and wistful.
December 28, 2019
Beautiful!
November 10, 2023
Beautiful mostly nature-based, mostly short poems.
January 31, 2025
Katharine Towers' 'The Remedies' is an excellent collection of sublimely lyrical poems, constantly pitting human insignificance against nature's vastness and power.
August 9, 2016
I received this book to read and review
This is only a small thin book of 53 pages - each poem being set to one page but some of the poems are really really short. Thus said it didn't take me long to read the whole book. But why ? - that was the question I was left asking myself when I got to the end of the book. Now I don't even begin to say I am a poetry fanatic but I am always open to trying new things and this book caught my eye. But now I wish it hadn't. The poems were mostly about life and nature - but oh how boring. some of the poems you had no sooner started to read then 6 lines later they were over and your head was puzzling as to what they meant . definately not a book I will be opening again . If you are a great poetry fan then you may i]like this but I would try and see if I could read an excerpt before paying £9.99 ( the price of this book)
This is only a small thin book of 53 pages - each poem being set to one page but some of the poems are really really short. Thus said it didn't take me long to read the whole book. But why ? - that was the question I was left asking myself when I got to the end of the book. Now I don't even begin to say I am a poetry fanatic but I am always open to trying new things and this book caught my eye. But now I wish it hadn't. The poems were mostly about life and nature - but oh how boring. some of the poems you had no sooner started to read then 6 lines later they were over and your head was puzzling as to what they meant . definately not a book I will be opening again . If you are a great poetry fan then you may i]like this but I would try and see if I could read an excerpt before paying £9.99 ( the price of this book)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews