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"Below the tree
free-riding on the water
a shadow plays,
beguiling,
ripe for idolatry.
I believe the tree
and note it down as the answer
to its own question".
Rebecca Watts's debut collection is a witty, warm-hearted guide to the English landscape, and a fresh take on nature poetry. In assured style, Watts positions herself where Wordsworth, Frost and Hughes have stood; with an original point of view and an openness to the possibilities of form, she retunes the genre for modern ears.
From the wide-open plains of ecology and social history to the intimate enclosures of dreams, homes and bodies, these poems approach their often-unusual subjects with the clarity and matter-of-factness of Simon Armitage and with humour that recalls Stevie Smith, spinning memorable scenes and vivid images from the material of ordinary language.
Animals, as familiars and omens, abound. Weather anticipates and directs human drama, under the analytic and tender watch of a poet influenced as much by science and realism as by Romanticism. As landscaper, orienteer and companion, Watts finds new ways of negotiating the complex territories of our physical and emotional worlds.
free-riding on the water
a shadow plays,
beguiling,
ripe for idolatry.
I believe the tree
and note it down as the answer
to its own question".
Rebecca Watts's debut collection is a witty, warm-hearted guide to the English landscape, and a fresh take on nature poetry. In assured style, Watts positions herself where Wordsworth, Frost and Hughes have stood; with an original point of view and an openness to the possibilities of form, she retunes the genre for modern ears.
From the wide-open plains of ecology and social history to the intimate enclosures of dreams, homes and bodies, these poems approach their often-unusual subjects with the clarity and matter-of-factness of Simon Armitage and with humour that recalls Stevie Smith, spinning memorable scenes and vivid images from the material of ordinary language.
Animals, as familiars and omens, abound. Weather anticipates and directs human drama, under the analytic and tender watch of a poet influenced as much by science and realism as by Romanticism. As landscaper, orienteer and companion, Watts finds new ways of negotiating the complex territories of our physical and emotional worlds.
About the author
Rebecca Watts was born in Suffolk in 1983 and now lives in Cambridge, where she works in a library and as a freelance editor. In 2014 she was selected as one of the Poetry Trust's Aldeburgh Eight. Her first collection is due out from Carcanet in 2016.
Reviews
"What a joy to find a writer so capable of creating narrative within the poetic, humour within philosophy, wildness and drama within the quotidian. Watts has a rare, perceptive eye, searching intelligence and gorgeous levity. This is a striding and far from standard debut" – Sarah Hall
"Rebecca Watts's poems adopt strange and illuminating vantage points – the bird's-eye view of a hawk, or a Victorian lady surveying a street from a penny-farthing – to do poetry's work of telling the truth, but telling it slant. Watts is particularly attuned to those points where human and non-human creatures meet and interact, and writes with intelligence and incision" – Emma Jones
"Rebecca Watts's poems adopt strange and illuminating vantage points – the bird's-eye view of a hawk, or a Victorian lady surveying a street from a penny-farthing – to do poetry's work of telling the truth, but telling it slant. Watts is particularly attuned to those points where human and non-human creatures meet and interact, and writes with intelligence and incision" – Emma Jones