Ambush at Still Lake
Forward Prize for Best Collection 2020
Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award 2020
Shortlisted for The Polari Book Prize 2021
Caroline Bird's new poems show us the ambush of real life that occurs in the stillness after the happy ending. This is a collection about marriage, lesbian parenthood, addiction and recovery in which a recurring dream is playing out: a world where mums impale themselves on pogo-sticks, serial killers rattle around in basements, baby monitors are haunted by someone else's baby and, through it all, love stays and stays like a stationary rollercoaster that turns out to be the scariest, most thrilling ride in the amusement park. Her publisher responded to the book in these terms: "It is bleak, repellent and hilarious in an American Psycho-ish way. Hectic and vivid".
Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award 2020
Shortlisted for The Polari Book Prize 2021
Caroline Bird's new poems show us the ambush of real life that occurs in the stillness after the happy ending. This is a collection about marriage, lesbian parenthood, addiction and recovery in which a recurring dream is playing out: a world where mums impale themselves on pogo-sticks, serial killers rattle around in basements, baby monitors are haunted by someone else's baby and, through it all, love stays and stays like a stationary rollercoaster that turns out to be the scariest, most thrilling ride in the amusement park. Her publisher responded to the book in these terms: "It is bleak, repellent and hilarious in an American Psycho-ish way. Hectic and vivid".
About the author
Caroline Bird is an award-winning poet. She won a major Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and was short-listed for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2001. Her first collection, "Looking Through Letterboxes", was published by Carcanet Press in 2002, when she was just fifteen. She was short-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008 and 2010 for her second and third collections, "Trouble Came To The Turnip", and "Watering Can", and was the youngest writer on the list both times. "Watering Can" achieved a "Poetry Book Society Recommendation". She was one of the five official poets at London Olympics 2012. Her poem, "The Fun Palace" which celebrates the life and work of Joan Littlewood, is now erected on the Olympic Site outside the main stadium. Her fourth poetry collection, "The Hat-stand Union", will be published in 2013. She is also a playwright: her children's musical, "The Trial of Dennis the Menace", was performed at the Southbank Centre in February 2012. This autumn, her bold new version of Euripides's "The Trojan Women" premiered at the Gate Theatre.