Latch

by Rebecca Goss

Latch is a study in the act of returning. It is about reconnecting to a place, Suffolk, and understanding what it once held, and what it now holds for a woman and her family. These poems unearth the deep, lasting attachments people have with the East Anglian countryside, gathering voices of labour, love and loss proving a landscape can both harm and heal us.

In this landscape, and in her fourth full-length collection, Rebecca Goss again draws on her distinctive ability to plough difficult, emotional terrain. Here is an anatomy of marriage, her parents’ and her own, while the natural world becomes an arena for the emotional push and pull that exists between mothers and daughters. The return to a childhood home recalls young siblings retreating into nature as they steer the adult lives that disintegrate around them.

This rich and unpredictable collection weaves memoir with magic realism, secrets with myth, light with dark. Readers will find themselves beckoned to barns, fields, weirs, to experience both refuge and disturbance: we are shown a county’s stars, and why a poet needed to return to live under them.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2023

About the author

Goss is a poet, academic, tutor, and mentor living in Suffolk. Her second collection, Her Birth (Carcanet/Northern House, 2013), is about the death of her sixteen month daughter from a rare heart condition. The moving collection was shortlisted for the 2013 Forward Prize for 'Best Collection' and won in the 'Poetry' category in the East Anglian Book Awards 2013, and in 2015 was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Writing and the Portico Prize for Literature.

Goss studied for a PhD by publication at the University of East Anglia. She was a Creative Writing Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University between 2018-19.

Reviews

[síomha ୨୧ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Your hand slips out of mine
as you bolt to the waiting swings,
leaving me with the egg, and all mothers
who lay their babies down, knowing
they cannot stay beside them,
must lower their own bodies into water
and continue with the swim.”

i went to a poetry event with my mum earlier this year where rebecca goss was one of the poets performing, and we both fell in love with the poems she read, especially as many of them had a theme of motherhood/mother-daughter relationships and childhood nostalgia. after the event, we bought this beautiful collection, and have both been gradually reading it since then. i have finally finished it, and can honestly say that it is definitely worth a read, with amazing and incredibly impactful poems throughout.

[Jonathan Roe · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad that Frank Skinner covered Rebecca Goss in his podcast. Thank you.

She manages to reflect on motherhood and the bricks and mortar of the Suffolk village brilliantly without slipping into nostalgia or hoisting an emotional flag of St George. Just beautiful.

BTW I disagree with Frank on the pheasant poem. She’s just nearly killed it and the glimpse in the rear view mirror is mixed with the bobbing head of her daughter asleep on the back seat. New life and the fragility of near-roadkill - stunning.

[Fionnbharr Rodgers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very controlled collection, both in terms of verses and also the emotions expressed there within. A beautiful expression of humanity.

[Kristiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant ♥️ Goss is one of my favourite poets.

[Julie Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some really memorable poems in this collection, particularly some of the poems dealing with childhood memories. 'The Pact' in particular has changed forever my perception of hay stacks.