The Heeding

by Rob Cowen, Nick Hayes

"Dazzling, moving... A book that will touch many, and be given here, take this, you must read this." —ROBERT MACFARLANE"So vivid... A call out to our elemental relationship with love and nature. Beautiful." WILLEM DAFOE The world changed in 2020. Gradually at first, then quickly and irreversibly, the patterns by which we once lived altered completely. Across four seasons and a luminous series of poems and illustrations, Rob Cowen and Nick Hayes paint a picture of a year caught in the grip of history yet filled with revelatory perspectives close at hand. A sparrowhawk hunting in a back street; the moon over a town with a loved one's hand held tight; butterflies massing in a high-summer yard – the everyday wonders and memories that shape a life and help us recall our own.The Heeding leads us on a journey that takes its markers and signs from nature and a world filled with fear and pain but beauty and wonder too. Collecting birds, animals, trees and people together, it is a profound meditation to a time no one will forget. At its heart, this is a book that helps us look again, to to be attentive to this world we share, to grieve what's lost and to hope for a better and brighter tomorrow. "The light shines through this book. Poetry is a kind of breathing space and Rob Cowen has taken to it. Domestic in the best sense of the word – small scale, intimate, known – it is tender in as many senses of that word as there are. I am deeply grateful for it." —Tim Dee, author, Landfill

Genres: Poetry, Nature, Nonfiction, Memoir

127 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 19, 2022

Reviews

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Heeding is a stunning anthology of poems and a collaboration between award-winning writer Rob Cowen and renowned Illustrator Nick Hayes. In the introduction, Cowen enlightens us as to how he came to a deep appreciation for the natural world. During his formative years, he remembers his grandfather who suffered from PTSD precipitated by his career in the Royal Artillery in WWII and he describes how ecology and the grounding and guiding nature can bring to one’s life helped him to escape his own mind for a few hours therefore profoundly affecting his mental health. Cowen, rightly, draws parallels between nature as a healer and how nature has positively impacted many of us throughout the dreadful, and still ongoing, pandemic. There has truly never been another time when getting ’back to nature’, an activity everyone can immerse themselves in, has made such a exponential change in people’s mindset after month upon month of imposed lockdown.

There are gems throughout this richly evocative selection and some exquisite turns of phrase, and while there are beautiful black and white illustrations interspersed throughout the book, Cowen tends to let the pieces speak for themselves by presenting them in a spare, sparse and uncluttered fashion letting his poetry and the rich imagery it evokes do the talking. Throughout these years of sorrow and stress, suffering and disarray, the nature around us speaks of a world old and dying, yet simultaneously forever young and evolving. These poems speak to nature as at once beautiful and brutal, unstoppable and fragile, wondrous and terrifying, glittering and dark. They speak of the importance and power of looking, listening and being cognizant of what is around us. They explore our relationship and interplay with the natural world at a time of profound change in all of our lives.

Somehow, through these dark, unprecedented times, Cowen has found the beauty that so often lies within the destruction and presented it throughout these 35 poems. They traverse the seasons, species and provide a catharsis while reading that is very rare to find. This is an exquisite collection I highly recommend to poetry enthusiasts, those struggling to ground themselves and those who appreciate the beauty of mother nature and her bounty. At its heart, this is a book that helps us look again, to heed: to be attentive to this world we share and this history we’re living through, to be aware of how valuable and fragile we are, to grieve what’s lost, and to hope for a better and brighter tomorrow. Highly recommended.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is one thing I hadn’t fully grasped about living through this pandemic until I read this book, which is that everybody has shared the same experience….in years to come I can bore the grandkids with stories of “during the pandemic….” Cowen captures those moments of lockdown coming into force, the staring at the same four walls day in day out, home-schooling and nature stepping up and taking back the world for a bit.

Cowen and Hayes have created something special here, Cowen’s words share experiences with those that have managed to go unscathed during the pandemic and mixed with Hayes’ illustrations it is heart wrenching. When reading “Last Breaths” I had to put the book down and walk away for a bit, I was overwhelmed, too much to handle, my Grandad passed away during the lockdown and was only allowed one visitor (in full PPE) at the end, Last Breaths captures what he and many others went through in their last moments…it also highlights how much the NHS staff did for those people. That poem is a thing of devastating beauty.

It’s not all like that though, there are lighter moments, the joy of home-schooling ending 🙂 and seeing so much nature up close in the garden. Another one I really liked was the feeling you get when you see a hawk hunting alongside the motorway it doesn’t matter how old you are it will always amaze you. “The Problem With Us” covers fake news, internet lies about the dangers of vaccinations, Cowen has utter contempt for those who spread this nonsense without providing any evidence, I gave him a wee clap after reading this one for reading my mind…a side effect of the vaccine?

Hayes’ illustrations fit in perfectly with the poems, with a few of them you get caught up in the moment, turn the page and you are hit with an explosion of art, spread across both pages is nature in it’s full glory. There is some clever use of a hawk as a symbol of the virus, one of the first illustrations shows how deadly it is, taking it’s first victim and one of the last illustrations shows our defiance and escaping from it’s grasp. The last illustration in the book was my favourite, an angry little blue tit that would make a pretty awesome tattoo.

I wish I could include a few lines to tempt you into getting yourself a copy but you really need to get it yourself to experience this book, I would love to hear one day in the future that this book is being taught at school as it really is at that level. One of the hardest books I’ve ever read and one thought kept coming to me, “I wish events hadn’t happened to inspire this book”. This has to be one of the most brilliant books to come out during the chaos of the last couple of years, a record of the sacrifices people made that should not be forgotten, this truly is one of those rare books that I’ll be reading again and again. It left me feeling immensely happy, I was left with a real spring in my step ready to face anything the world cares to throw at me.

Blog review includes a link to view the art being made: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2021...

[greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5💎

i never know how to rate a poetry collection lol, anyway i liked it, but also it's really forgettable and i found myself sometimes bored. i enjoyed a few poems, others - i didn't quite get the meaning of. i also liked the pictures in this book that looked really old school, i think that's not the type that we see in modern books now! but still, i don't think i would recommend this to anyone, unless u're fully into poetry and like playing with words. this poetry collection is basically about our relationship with natural world & coronavirus.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been a strange old world over the past five years, and then at the beginning of 2020 things took a whole different turn once again. Rising infections of disease from China crossed borders and continents and in what seemed like no time at all, we were in the midst of a global pandemic. COVID-19 was here and it wasn’t going anywhere soon.

Life as we had known it would change like nothing we had ever know before,

Different people coped in many different ways, there was generally a good spirit between communities and neighbours, but the stresses of the situation as further lockdowns that happened would begin to build. As these changes unsettled Cowen he began to pay heed to the things around him that never changed, things that anchored him to where he lived and became a metaphorical and literal support for him.

What he observed on his government approved outside excursions he began to write about what he had seen. Some of the poems were a scrawl on a page that scarcely changed from that first draft and others he would think about as sleep evaded him. Looking framed the poetry and the words demanded more observations. These are the tiny moments that he saw around him.

There it hung, in stillness, blackness,
Right there, for a moment, alone
As though arranged entirely for us;
A perfect disk of polished bone

The poems in this collection feel polarised, on one hand, there are poems about starlings and hawks carrying on with their lives as though nothing had changed in the world. Moments of the natural world gave comfort to Cowen as he coped in his own way with the pandemic. There are then other poems that are raw and emotional responses to the subjects that affected him and his family. I didn’t realise that the author and artist had not met before this collaboration, as what they have compiled is a beautiful book. I particularly like the art that Hayes has created for the book. The images are strong and evocative without being bleak.

Three Favourite Poems
Last Breaths
Self Isolating
Family Trees

[Tom Stanger · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the privileges of reviewing books is that now and again a book comes along that genuinely speaks to you personally, says what you want to say, and in this past year of being (mostly) under lockdown then a book such as The Heeding will speak to many other people also.

The Heeding, a collections of poems by Rob Cowen, author of Common Ground and writer and wonderfully illustrated by Nick Hayes, author of The Book of Trespass, that reflect upon this past year; a year of lockdown, of protest, personal sorrows and new beginnings for many. It would be safe to say that 2020-2021 will remain as a period many will remember for various reasons, and the poetry in The Heeding is the author and artist’s perspectives on this time.

Spanning not just the past year, but also past and personal account of Cowen’s youth and of his parents’ interest in nature, which helped develop his interest in the natural world we’re taken through a remembrance which leads to the present day, along with observations and revelations which intertwine the rich tapestry of The Heeding.

Along with many of the personal perspectives that related to me personally, the pieces that particularly rung out with me are the ones which relayed the aspects of loneliness during this time, trying to make relationships, or even basic conversation, with anyone who feels accessible, mostly shop workers, or in this case a pharmacist, and also the people who spread falsehoods around the vaccination programme. Apart from being the Editor of The Pilgrim, I have also been working full-time at the local vaccination centre, and I have witnessed these figures regularly, all claiming to have done some ‘research’ via whatever latest online video and social media groups who spread wild rumour and conjecture to gain I don’t know what! Yet, reading these particular verses helped me feel that we working in these centres are not on our own, we know we’re not but sometimes it requires a certain someone saying a certain line to make the whole situation sink in.

One of the main of The Heeding is that of observation, and the observations by Rob Cowen are enhanced by the beauty and simplicity of the verses within, and it’s this simplicity and honesty that makes these verses shine, accompanied with Nick Hayes’ superb artwork for each poem, The Heeding speaks for the time in which we live.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This poetry and art collaboration arose out of a “pact to pay attention” during a year of lockdown in the UK and record observations of nature, current events, and everyday life. Cowen is drawn to the moors near his home in Yorkshire, but also yearns to spend time with his friends again. He watches hawks and blue tits, notices the insects that fill his garden, and celebrates the way that allotment gardening brings together all sorts of people.

The emotional scope of the poems is broad: the author fondly remembers his brick-making ancestors and his honeymoon; he somberly imagines the last moments of an old man dying in the hospital; he expresses guilt over accidentally dismembering an ant, yet divulges that he then destroyed the ants’ nest deliberately. There are even a couple of cheeky, carnal poems, one about a couple of teenagers he caught copulating in the street and one, “The Hottest Day of the Year,” about a longing for touch. “Matter,” in ABAB stanzas, is on the theme of racial justice via the Black Lives Matter movement.

My two favourites were “Sunday School,” about the rules for life he’s lived by since leaving religion behind, and “The End of This (Drinking Poem),” which serves as a good-riddance farewell to 2020: “Let me shake off / this year the way the otter / slips out of fast, rising water / and makes the holt just in time ... / Let me rid my days of caution and fear, / these protocols and tiers / and Zoom funerals for people I love / and will never see again.” The book is worth the price of admission for the latter alone, and Hayes’s black-and-white woodcut-style engravings are a plus.

However, in general I felt that the balance of current events and nature was off, especially compared to books like The Consolation of Nature, and ultimately I was not convinced that this needed to be in verse at all. “Starling,” especially, feels like a straight knockoff of The Lost Words (“We forget that you once shimmered through frozen air, ripple bird. / Shape-shifter, dusk-dancer. Murmurer, sky-writer”). Judging from Common Ground, this would have been more successful as a book of short prose diary entries with a few poems dotted through.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a poetry book for everyone. Short lyrics of sublime beauty combine with narrative verse which explores in a deeply moving and intense way the issues of life, death, love and sacrifice in a year of calamity which has affected us all. Some of the poems such as 'This Allotment', 'Viking Gold' and 'Moon over Skipton Road' moved me to tears. Rob Cowen has the uncanny ability, also present in the brilliant poetic prose of Common Ground, to record the bravery and pain of ordinary life with exquisite tenderness. The wonderful linocuts of Nick Hayes combine with the language to create a volume which is a work of art in which the words and the images sustain each other.

[Fern Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book of poetry written during the pandemic. Rob Cowen writes about nature and the natural world and in this collection uses this to also write about and document life through the pandemic. The book also has fabulous illustrations throughout by the talented Nick Hayes.

I really enjoyed reading this and read it through twice in one sitting. It captured the last year really well and I think summed up so many peoples experiences as well as having some wonderful nature observations too. A very solid five stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Linda Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of thirty-five poems with illustrations.

I’m slightly at a loss to know how to review The Heeding. I found it such an affecting book that I’m unsure any review I might attempt can do it justice.

Redolent of great literary traditions, Rob Cowen’s poems made me think of such luminaries as Gerard Manley Hopkins (especially The Windhover) of Thomas Hardy’s The Darkling Thrush, of Seamus Heaney, and of John Donne’s For Whom the Bell Tolls because the quality of the writing is so superb. And yet Rob Cowen builds on those literary traditions, techniques and allusions, and makes them fresh, modern and absolutely perfect for the year 2020 he is describing, through a richness of language that is breath-taking. There is nothing derivative here, but rather an absolutely personal, and simultaneously universal, exploration of our modern world. There’s no shying away from the events of 2020 with references, for example, to the Black Lives Matter movement, through social distancing and the national interest in gardening, to the impact of the pandemic on South Asian people. I thought The Heeding was exceptional because reading it helped me make sense of the year we’ve lived through.

There are so many images and motifs of death whether they occur through Covid, war, nature or accident that The Heeding ought to be a depressing collection but it is far from it. Rob Cowen explores death’s effect by ultimately uplifting the reader, reminding them of human connection, of nature’s fortitude and of how we can endure even in the most difficult of times. His poetry illustrates how we can heed the world around us in the three ways outlined at the beginning of the collection; by observation, by taking care and by protecting. The Heeding isn’t simply a collection of wonderfully evocative poems, but it is a guide to readers on how to reconnect with the natural world, with our emotions and to be more mindful and observant. I felt that in reading The Heeding I’d been given the gift of relearning simply how to be, that I had lost over 2020.

A whole gamut of emotion underpins every single syllable so that each poem in The Heeding is an affecting reading experience. Rob Cowen presents rage, anger, relief, grief, despair, joy and hope in a beautifully written maelstrom I found mesmerising. For example, the last line of The Lovers made me chuckle aloud and the final line of Last Breaths made me weep but I was totally undone by Pharmacy Cake. Ironically, because each of those poems has humans at its heart, it was the iterative motif of nature in so many of the other poems that I found so effective. I loved the innovative compound adjectives such as those in Starling. I loved the sometimes tricky punctuation that exemplified the poet’s problematic feelings. I loved the italicised speech that made me hear the voices. The Heeding rewards rereading time after time because so much thought has gone in to the selection of each beautifully crafted phrase that there is new meaning to be found each time. Quite frankly I am astounded by Rob Cowen’s writing.

Aside from the incredible quality of Rob Cowen’s writing, Nick Hayes’ stark impactful black and white illustrations bring the whole collection in The Heeding into sharp focus. The images enhance the reader’s understanding and deepen the enjoyment in, and appreciation of, the poems. Because the pictures have a traditional woodcut appearance they also deepen the sense of value in this collection, giving the impression that life and skill can persist even in the darkest of times. The pictures manage to be both brooding and dramatic whilst also feeling sensitive and tender.

Searing, profound and visceral, The Heeding is an important, raw and moving collection I won’t forget or be parted from. I absolutely adored it. It’s one of my books of the year.

[Bookread2day · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review is on my website www.bookread2day.wordpress.com

I absolutely love reading poetry books, as it’s one of my favourite subjects I like reading about.
The first thing I noticed while reading The Heeding is that Rob Cowen has a gift for writing stunning poetry that sets him high up in the poetry world like no other poets.
There’s something about the poems that has powerful words, with sections about birds, flowers, weather landscape, and nature that really make you think.

My favourite poem in the book

SNOW CHARM

Snow
loosening, collapsing from branches,
slipping, dripping from the shock-shushed trees.
Blowing like dust off feathery canopies.
Snow
in deep drifts, thick-blanketing,
Cushioning the uneven wreckage
of the fell wood’s floor, stump, hump, thorn.
Snow
making chandeliers of crowns,
melting, tic-tac-tic-tac, over the wild track
of a swollen beck. And us, tired from the climb.
Snow blind, breathing hard, pausing
to shed a layer. Coming to, like you do after deep sleep. From numbness to clarity.
Snow
over the drystone walls beyond,
over the heather, over scattered dwarf spruce,
the summit dome of powdered white.
Snow
shine, too bright to look at.
The children hurrying up the wet track, squeaking, roaring, stopping to pack
Snow
balls to throw at us. All thoughts but
being here, now, on these high, dry-cold tops, snagged on the wire of the last fence below.
Snow
trees on the fellside, dark pine,
drifting with wraith mist, like steam rising off the hot black flank of a run horse. Each bought.
Snow
dressed, sparkling with the last of the sun. And I know we must go, I only wish some part of us could remain, out of harms way, frozen in this
Snow
as we two age and you two grow, let us stay like spirits fast-bound to a conjuring stone, leaving and returning each year, unchanged as
Snow

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book of poetry this was to sit and read. I do like reading poetry but sometimes I can feel lost or out of my depth. The Heeding however is a collection I could totally understand and also nod knowingly along with.

The author wrote these poems during the lockdown, this is something everyone experienced and therefore it means everyone has some similar shared experiences. I think this is what in some ways goes towards making this a relatable collection.

During the lockdown, many things happened that were not necessarily pandemic related. So getting out into the garden or an allotment, being out in nature and also experiences from the authors past.

The poetry is illustrated in such a striking way. They are blocky, eye-catching and so poignant and this makes them so very relatable. Turning a page after finishing reading a poem to discover a bold illustration that sums up the poem brilliantly. They really compliment the words.

This is a mix of poems, some happy and made me chuckle, some slower and almost story-like that took a little more thinking about and some are heartbreaking. It is a collection that I think if you were to sit and go through you would definitely find one if not several that you could relate to somehow.

I sat and read two or three poems a night over several nights. This gave me time to think about them and digest them, occasionally reading some of them twice.

A wonderfully presented book that has a great introduction, and is one that I will treasure. A book that I can keep coming back to and one that I would very definitely recommend.

[Beth Storey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Heeding is a beautiful collaboration between writer Rob Cowen, author of Common Ground and writer and illustrator Nick Hayes, author of The Book of Trespass. Their styles of writing and illustrating meld beautifully together in this volume of poetry. The book reflects on the Covid 19 pandemic and how it has shaped all our lives in strange and unusual ways. Some of the poems are focused on the strange act of shutting ourselves away from one another and the challenges that domestic life is faced with in our new pandemic inhabited world. Other poems are broader and encompass the vast delight of spending time out of doors. There is nature writing, natural history and current affairs woven in with the beautiful language of these poems.

Accompanying these poems are swirling woodcut illustrations by Hayes that strikingly illustrate the book. Starlings tumble across the page, a hawk tears through the binding, a pharmacy window is illuminated from within while snow falls outside. The interplay between our unusual daily lives over the past year and the solace found in the natural world are wonderfully examined in this book and the collaboration with words and images is so successful that I hope there will be more to come from these two artists working together. Though hopefully under more pleasant circumstances.

I would recommend this book to readers of pretty much any age and particularly to any reader that wanted to reflect on this strange time that we find ourselves living through, with the natural world being the central focus and form of succour. The book is a lovely slim volume and would be a perfect companion on a walk through woodland or on a wander to hear birdsong outside. Slipped into a coat pocket it will be a perfect companion to spending time outside. The book is fittingly published to coincide with the June 2021 summer solstice to mark the end of the first lockdown. Perfect timing in my opinion as the book is a slice of solace in troubled times.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it too early to declare a book is the best of the year? Perhaps, but it will take something pretty special to displace The Heeding by Rob Cowen.
This book charts the events and emotions of the last year through a series of poems, please don’t let that put you off - I don’t often read poetry - they are highly readable and relatable. They deal with themes of disrupted lives, love, loss, frustration and memories, several of them brought tears to my eyes. I also found hope in them and belief that things will be righted. I implore you all to make room on your shelves for this wonderful book and if you haven’t already check out his previous book Common Ground which is equally wonderful but it a different way.

[Alexa Minett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The illustrations are stunning and the visual appeal of the book is five stars for me. I am particularly drawn to linocut style images, especially those of nature.

The collection itself draws a lot of its meaning from the collective experience of 2020 in the UK, tapping into the residual emotions from the time. Like a lot of poetry collections, I found that some individual poems had a far higher emotional impact than others. For example, any involving the elderly, care homes, or loneliness had me weeping. Others I read and forgot straight away. I felt that the collection helped me to reflect upon my experiences of that time, which seemed to pass in a surreal blur. I feel I got a lot out of reading it.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful collection of poems and illustrations, that act as a cathartic exhalation to the year we all lost.

[Carys · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully illustrated little book of poetry.

Written during lockdown in the UK Cowen puts down his feelings about this specific moment in time, his relationship with nature and the memories that form his life experience. These subjects overlap and capture many of the feelings of the last year in a simultaneously personal and universal manner.

Interspersed through the book are Nick Hayes beautiful illustrations. They add to the experience of reading, set a tone and are genuinely lovely pieces of art in themselves.
~
I loved this. I read it in one day but will definitely be going back to dip in and out of it again as the mood takes me.

The author managed to capture some of the rawer feelings and worries I have had throughout this time, but in a way that left me feeling understood and optimistic instead of hopeless.

I have been trying to find a style of poetry that I enjoy and connect to (having never been a big poetry reader) and this is certainly that.
~
I recommend this book if you enjoy nature writing or books dealing with some of the emotional baggage of last year.

I would also say that some of the poems deal with death and other dark themes so be aware of this, however it is always with a reflective and respectful tone so it’s up to what you feel able to handle.

[Charlotte Fay · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an absolutely beautiful collection of poetry. I really enjoyed reading each and every one and very much enjoyed the language and connection to nature that the writer has. This book was written during the corona virus pandemic and so references this a lot. However, it was not too much that it would put you off, more of a personal account of thoughts and feelings entwined with nature.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing and advanced readers copy in exchange for review. I would definitely recommend to anyone that enjoys poetry (not so much of poetry isn’t your thing)

[Sue Adsett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is perfect. A remarkable sequence of poems with beautiful illustrations. Each poem struck a chord with me and made me think yes, that's exactly how I've felt over the past year. All the emotions, fear, anxiety, grief, guilt, love, and in the end, a glimmer of hope and optimism. A book to be savoured over and over again, each time finding something new and fresh. I love it.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning work of beauty, loss, love and hope that combines poetry and imagery to create a powerful and profound reflection on our times. It's poetry, but it goes far further than that. It's real, visceral and essential.

[Kid Ferrous · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Heeding" is an excellent collection of thirty-five poems by Rob Cowen, written during and inspired by the pandemic of 2020 and hauntingly Illustrated by Nick Hayes with drawings which sometimes lean towards "folk horror". although the poems themselves don't fall into this category.
After an incredibly well-written and moving introduction, the visceral opening poem, “Duel”, tells of a battle between a hawk and a rat -

“Then it bends to rip out a strip
of glistening purple gut
and swallows the lot”

This poem is a statement of intent for what we can expect from the poetry going forward. Nature is raw and brutal, and its power and indifference is exposed in these verses, and some form of bird or creature or element of the natural world is always present in each poem. However, isolation also leads to a renewed appreciation of nature. Capturing the seemingly hopeless days of lockdown perfectly- the boredom of isolation, the separation from loved ones, the constant barrage of demoralizing news. The reference to discarded face masks littering the streets resonated strongly.
There are some very affecting lines - “Hell of a thing to be afraid of air.", and on the whole these are emotional verses, but there is humour too, in particular in “Lovers”, which tells of two young people caught in the act late at night -

"Now, reasons for being outside are concrete-set:
A form of exercise? Well, you might argue that.
He was certainly burning calories down there,
Pants round his ankles, backside bare.”

Elsewhere, we get tales of first love and lost love, but the realities of the pandemic are ever-present shadows -

“Passing her on the street, a couple
automatically swerve six feet.”

The shocking “Black Ant”, in which the author tries, but fails, to help a trapped ant, rams home the inevitability, and in some ways, the futility, of life, but the final poem, "Duel Part II", brings us full circle and gives us hope that we should keep trying -

"Death? Inevitable, yes, but not yet.
Or not today, at least."

"Lockdown poetry" will no doubt become a new genre in its own right, a kind of alternative written history of the pandemic, and "The Heeding" is one of the best examples I've read this year. There is death in these poems, but they also implore us to take heed of the natural world, each other and our relationship to it, and to hope for better times to come.

Many thanks to Elliott & Thompson and NetGalley for allowing me to view an ARC of this title.

[Eve Hunter-Featherstone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adored this collection and will be making sure to read Cowen's other books. I spent the autumn months carrying this around in my coat pocket and reading it in snatches when I found myself outdoors alone. Cowen has a brilliant ability to perfectly capture the raw wildness of nature in one poem then in the next to share the softer comfort that can be found in opening our eyes and noticing our surroundings. Somehow this was fitted seamlessly alongside poems exploring the lighter and darker sides of human nature. I cried in shared grief, I smiled in shared hope, and I looked a little closer at the world around me. I think this one might be staying in my coat pocket a little longer.

[Graham Sillars · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, just absolutely beautiful! A collection of gorgeously written and sumptuous poetry. Set during the early days of the covid pandemic and telling the story of isolation and the unknowing nature of things that we all struggled with.

Full of love, loss, heart and a longing for normality and togetherness. With lots of the natural world thrown in for good measure.

A truly and staggeringly thought provoking and incredible collection of poetry.

I highly recommend it. I’m sure there’ll be something in here for everyone after our collective experiences of the last 24 months.

[Odette Lattimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you for the advanced copy.

I really enjoyed this, Poetry is not normally for me but the way this was put together was perfect for me.

[Rosamund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous illustrations and I appreciated the sentiment about paying attention to the world around us in the face of the Covid pandemic. The poems themselves were variable for me.

[Flitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written during lockdown this collection of poems offers a very personal insight into that period. There are highs and lows, laughter and sadness and above all a great depth to the writing.

[Mary]

It's a very bitter experience reading this book 18 months after its release and knowing absolutely none of the lessons it hopes for have actually been learned.

[Niamh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A snapshot of a truly unusual period in history.
Strangely nostalgic to read it after five years

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous. I loved Common Ground and I was a bit wary of a book of lockdown poetry from an author I very much respect; I should not have been. This is a collection of beautiful observations of nature and people, particularly the people. It is written in his particular down to earth style which paints vivid pictures with simple, well judged description. Absolutely loved this book, which by chance I spotted in Seven Fables bookshop.

[Boy Blue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cowen has created a time capsule of his life in the Yorkshire Moors during Covid, now it will travel forward through time like an insect preserved in amber.

The collection starts with one of the strongest poems, Duel, thrust into the reader's mind just like the rat in the hawk's grasp.

It appears entangled, writhing.
Half-bird, half-beast, hurled from
Heaven, damned and screaming,

While the first poem has all the power of nature, the forceful side, the majority of the collection deals with the quiet, unseen world. That's the heeding, paying attention to the world around us, not just the things thrust before us.

The bulk are nature poems, and how you feel about them may come down to how familiar the sentiments are. Every Brit would recognise Motorway Hawk. The final few lines are excellent.

You drop, dead weight, into the soft
estate and the earth receives your energy, repaying
your mastery of movement by placing a vole
exactly where you expect it to be.

I also really enjoyed the storytelling poems.

Honeymoon, in which Cowen and his new wife stumble upon half a brick with the letters COW inscribed in them, and he later finds out there was a famous brickmaker Joseph Cowen, is wonderful as a story. This Allotment also has a strong narrative thread. I wonder if perhaps Cowen is better suited as a narrative story teller than a poet. Because the stories are memorable but the poetry not so much. At times it would be hard to call the output poetry. Things like Starling feel more like informal musings on a topic.

Fatherhood has a however brought out some beautiful sentiment in him, evidenced in a poem like

Moon Over Skipton Road

And before the clouds hurried to hide it,
Like a secret, there was just us three;
The moon, you and me.
And in that second, I remember thinking:

Should these measures prove useless
And I be torn from you,
If it turns out my life
Held no other purpose

But to hold your hand
For this second or two,
It was still worth living for, my love.
You were still worth living for.

There are also a large subset of poems which I would call the Covid poems

Noises Off
Lost
The Pact
The Lovers
Solidarity on a Saturday Night
Last Breaths
Self Isolating
The Problem With Us

I'm not exactly sure why but I'm yet to find fictional pandemic writing that I think is good or compelling. At best it feels like decent historical record, at worst it feels twee. I wonder if not enough time has passed? That the experience of Covid still sits so strongly in the mind that fictional representations of it, or poetical musings seem glib or lacking in power, when compared to one's personal experience. Or maybe it's a general fatigue with it, that still hits us. We don't want to think about it, to talk about it, to read about it.

Finally a couple of poems act as mea culpas, Dennis, and The River. These are more for Cowen than for us.

A nod to the excellent illustrations by Nick Hayes.

Overall, a good read, with a few cracking stanzas but no full poems worth memorising. It's probably a collection more appreciated by Britons and specifically ones from the North.

[Jaffareadstoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology of thirty-five beautifully formed poems takes us on an enlightening journey into the appreciation of what we have around us and of the resources we have within ourselves. During this recent global pandemic I think we have all learned to turn inward and reflect more about those who are close to us and what it means to have been isolated from those we love and the lives we lead.

The Heeding is an introspective look at the feelings expressed during the early stages of lockdown in 2020. I found the poem Noises Off encapsulated a world which had suddenly gone silent. Whilst Lost brought into stark focus the unreality of life in lockdown with face masks abandoned on the pavement, the frustration of keeping children amused when both parents are working from home and the mysterious phenomena of clapping for our NHS heroes. All now so ingrained into our collective consciousness that our lives will be forever changed.

Learning to look at nature in a therapeutic way is something we can all identify with and there are references to nature scattered throughout the collection which made me aware of just how important the natural world is to us. I particularly enjoyed Starling which reminded me of the chattering group of Starlings which visit my bird feeder every morning, their noisy cheerfulness became such a highlight of my day during lockdown.

There's such an abundance of beautifully written verse that once I had finished the collection I found myself going back to revisit certain poems and even now days later I find that I can pick up the book, at whim, and find something to enjoy. Interspersed and very much an integral part of the anthology are the beautiful black and white line drawing illustrations which bring the meaning of the poems to life in both a poignant and mesmerising way. There's a delightful drawing of a fox hunkering down in its den which is simply magical.