I am, infamously, Not Good with poetry. But, googling around after falling for the record SING AS THE CROW FLIES by Laura Cannell and Polly Wright, I found this short book of Polly Wright’s poetry, COLD BLOW MARSH.
It arrived as the temperature dropped here, so “Winter, Always Winter” immediately struck a resonant note.
It is gorgeously written, with surprising bursts of humour, and it speaks of places I know. The rusted melancholy of broken microwave ovens laying in fields with their mouths lolling open, old homes being eaten by vines.
Teeth rattle in tobacco tins with rusted corners
she says, and I know exactly what she means. It’s a book of the life of the haunted marshes, the sparse woodlands we throw out old dreams out into, and the sounds of the past whistling through the long grass.
It’s nine quid from this website, and I loved it.