We learn what poetry is – if we ever learn – by reading it.’
T. S. Eliot
As part of my writing process, I read – for enjoyment, for enrichment – but also to learn more about the art of poetry. It may be the ex-literature teacher in me, but analysing and reviewing what I’ve read really elucidates the craft in the work.
Reviews
Alchemy: Reviewed
Defined as a book that “shifts through memory, family and nature”, Perry’s first collection is a melting pot of different narratives, both real and imagined, shot through with a poet’s unflinching eye for detail. Death stalks many of the poems, from the sinister ‘Swimming’ where “you/ waded neck high into the lough water.” to the…
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The M Pages: Reviewed
Published by Picador in 2020, The M Pages is Bryce’s fifth collection. It’s an incredibly moving collection of poems where the poet grapples with the unexpected death of a relative in a central sequence ‘The M Pages’, the nucleus around from which the other poems draw energy. Death opens the collection in the oddly puckish…
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Hamnet: Reviewed
Winner of the Waterstones Book of the Year 2020 and the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, Hamnet is Maggie O’Farrell’s eighth novel. Although named after Shakespeare’s son and focused around his short life, the narrative strand of Anne Shakespeare (here known as Agnes) is much more prominent. She explodes from the novel as a fascinating,…
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Constellations
Constellations Winner of the prize for Non-fiction Book of the Year at the 2020 Irish Book Awards, Sinéad Gleeson’s Constellations is a series of essays and vignettes about living with chronic pain and what happens when the body starts to give up. It’s a book primarily about the importance of the body and how it…
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Gerard Smyth: The Mirror Tent Review
Smyth’s sixth collection is one with its gaze focused backwards. Many of the poems are a means of preserving memories in print. While this could mean too heavy a dollop of nostalgia, Smyth avoids the saccharine through the vivacity of his images. In the first of the four sections, memories jump into the reader’s consciousness…
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‘The Wild Silence’ Raynor Winn Reviewed
Sequel to the wonderful The Salt Path, The Wild Silence is Raynor Winn’s second book. Similarly autobiographical in tone, this book picks up shortly after The Salt Path finishes. From the opening chapter, we’re thrown straight back into the natural world as we meet Ray again. Her and Moth have started on their new lives…
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‘Morning in the Burned House’ by Margaret Atwood Reviewed
This collection by Atwood explores the view of femininity and female experience. Like her famous novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ there’s a real sense of anger, offset by a directness and black humour. It is divided into a number of stages. It opens with a draining sense of ennui, illustrated in phrases such as “the century…
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Wintering by Katherine May Reviewed
This book is a study of one woman’s management of her depression. Covering October to March, it’s a meditation on life that examines how we can anchor ourselves in the natural world to cope with the demands of modern society. May sets out her manifesto in the prologue: “Everyone winters at one time or another;…
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The Art of Falling, Kim Moore
It’s not very often I feel compelled to buy a book at a reading (mostly because I’m trying to cut down on the amount of books I own, not because the poets are shite) but I knew I had to own this one as soon as Moore finished reading her first poem. It’s a collection…
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Northern Ireland: More than Westeros
For those of us in the know (i.e. those of us who grew up there!) Northern Ireland (or the North of Ireland) is more than just a location scout’s dream. We’ve known about the wow factor of our beautiful countryside for years and now it appears the rest of the world is beginning to catch…
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‘Safe Home’ by Mícheál McCann Review
Mícheál McCann’s debut pamphlet ‘Safe Home’ was published by Green Bottle Press in 2020. From the opening mini-sequence ‘Études’, there’s a strong sense of musicality and cadence. There’s also a strong instance of McCann’s signature knack of rooting even the grandiose to the everyday when the poem moves from the beauty of the orchestral music…
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Lifeboat Press Pamphlets
Kevin Breathnach Morphing Firstly, the aesthetics. These pamphlets are things of beauty – the font, cover design, colour palette – even the weight of the paper is satisfying. Published in 2020, Morphing is Breathnach’s debut pamphlet. The opening poem ‘A Letter from a Number’ is unsettling in its playful use of language, dominated by phrases…
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Jacob Polley, Jackself
Winner of the TS Eliot award in 2016, this is Polley’s fourth collection. It’s unsettling from the opening poem ‘The House that Jack Built’, a poem that focuses on destruction. We see time pass through the lifespan of timber – despite how much manipulation humans exert on the wood, it lasts. It’s unnerving to be…
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Leontia Flynn, The Radio
The collection opens with a sequence of poems that explore the fragility of the mind. The second poem ‘Alzheimer’s Villanelle’ is an astonishing piece of work. The choice of form is fantastic – the echoes mimic the confusion of the mind and some of the visual descriptions are incredibly visceral, creating a very unsettling feel.…
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Sharon Olds, Stag’s Leap
Published in 2012 and winner of the T.S. Eliot prize and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Stag’s Leap charts the poet’s journey through the end of a thirty year marriage. Poignant, passionate and unrelentingly personal, it’s an astonishing collection. The collection follows a chronological order as Olds takes us through the breakdown of her marriage…
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Seán Hewitt: Tongues of Fire
Published by Cape in 2020, Tongues of Fire is Hewitt’s first full collection after the remarkable ‘Lantern’, a pamphlet published by Offord Road Press. It’s difficult to write about this collection without a heavy reliance on superlatives. It’s a wondrous book, full of hope and beauty. There’s a lot of darkness too – grief weighs…
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Penguin Modern Poets 6
The sixth edition of this series is a pantheon of contemporary female poets. The book opens with Claudia Rankine. Through her poems we accompany a series of women as they navigate racism, the strange intimacy of pregnancy and the difficulties facing women who choose to step from the expected path of motherhood. The poems here…
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‘Better than God: Peter Porter
This was the last collection Porter published before his death – which means it’s no surprise that mortality is very much at the forefront. However, it’s not a maudlin collection – there’s enough humour here to give balance to the levity of the subject matter. The short opening poem ‘Better than God’ opens the collection…
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Citadel: Martha Sprackland
The thing that really stood out in Sprackland’s debut was the sense of cohesion. The first poem ‘Poached Eggs on Toast’ creates images and motifs that are carried through the collection – eggs and yolks appear in many poems. The second and third poems form a mini sequence exploring Sprackland’s memory of being hit on…
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Handiwork: Sara Baume
Everything about this book is satisfying – the size (pleasingly pocket-sized), the texture (heavy-grade, slightly rough paper) and of course the contents. It’s a beautifully wrought insight into the mind of an artist who explores her craft, her inspiration, her influences and the world around her in little sequences. Many of these sequences read like…
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Róisín Kelly: Mercy
There’s a mythical, dream-like quality to this collection, filled with motifs of stars and apples. It’s also rooted in place – there’s a sense of journey as we move with the speaker across Portugal, Greece and Ireland in a voyage of self-discovery as they look to move beyond failed relationships and find their own roots…
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A Man’s House Catches Fire – Review
Tom Sastry’s debut collection thrusts the reader into a world wrapped in deadpan metaphors. The opening poem ‘A Man’s House Catches Fire’ sets the tone as self-deprecating from the outset with the lines: “I thought the smell of smoke was just me going off my head which I have learned to expect.” The poem ends…
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Review: Julia Webb’s ‘Threat’
This second collection from Julia Webb is published by the fantastic Nine Arches Press. Consisting of four sections, the reader is thrown into a world of violence, loss and family expertly examined with an unflinching eye. In the first section, ‘Body of evidence’ the poems have a sinister tinge, rooted in the physical. The opening…
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Reviewed: The Protection of Ghosts, Natalie Linh Bolderston
The poems in this debut pamphlet are filled with ghosts – not ‘physical’ ghosts, but the ghosts of the past that live in the present through inter-generational stories and experiences. Natalie Linh Bolderston weaves a haunting tapestry of trauma, exile, cultural legacy and loss in poems that examine the scars left by the atrocities of…
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Louise McStravick, How to Make Curry Goat: Review
Louise McStravick’s collection explodes into the reader’s consciousness, seducing with vibrant, colourful imagery while also shining a light on life on society’s fringes. The opening poem ‘Just another road in Erdington’ sets the tone, filled with vernacular phrases and talk of prisons, arson and drug addiction that was the backdrop to childhood. From the outset,…
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Racheal Boast, Void Studies: Review
There is so much movement in this collection of beautiful vignettes, whether through the physical movement of the characters in the poems or the movement of the elements that meander through the poems. From the opening line “Late night like unopened letters” it feels that these are secrets whispered to the reader, elusive and illusory,…
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Thomas McColl, Grenade Genie: Review
From the opening poem, it’s clear that this collection is an unwaveringly close examination of the modern world, its landscapes and its politics.It moves from the fresh and interesting descriptions of “buses are bison and people are grass” (‘No Longer Quite so Sure’) to the didactic “You’ve made a pact with the digital devil” (‘The…
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Fiona Benson, Vertigo and Ghost: Review
Vertigo and Ghost is Fiona Benson’s second collection and the winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2019.. I was bowled over by Bright Traveller, falling in love with the way she weaves the natural world with human experience in a way that feels both warming yet sinister. I love the immediacy of…
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The Salt Path: Raynor Winn
This had been on my radar for a while – the wonderful cover had me thinking of extended walks by the seaside – like a coastal Sebald or Solnit. It’s a little different, and not 100% what I was expecting. Instead of a poetic piece of psychogeographical narrative, this is a biography of a couple…
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Lanny: Max Porter
I devoured Porter’s first book Grief is a Thing with Feathers in one sitting, so I cleared an afternoon and settled in. Although I am a bit of a traditionalist in terms of form, there’s something about the way Porter dissolves the boundaries of form that is really accessible. Lanny opens with a barrage of…
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Elisabeth Horan: Odd list, Odd house, Odd me
This collection is an ode to Emily Dickinson – to her work, her themes and her poetry. In an interview with Twist in Time magazine, Horan highlights the similarities between her own work and that of Dickinson in terms of themes, but this collection isn’t simply a reflection of Dickinson’s work – in some ways,…
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Ocean Vuong: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
I loved his poetry collection for its astonishing use of lyricism and twisting of classicalism (like in the incredible Telemachus) so I was very excited to get my hands on this. I heard him read at Toppings in Bath and knew from the short extract this was going to be something special – the delicacy…
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Bright Travellers: Fiona Benson
The debut collection from the award-winning poet was a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while. Deeply personal, it covers motherhood, landscape and includes a beautiful sequence of poems for Vincent Van Gogh. The opening poem ‘Caveat’ forms an epigraph for the collection with its message that it is possible to find the…
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A stunning pamphlet by poet Mark Pajak
Spitting Distance is a Laureate’s Choice pamphlet from 2016 that I bought after hearing the poet read at an event in Bristol last year. From the moment he finished reading the first stanza of his first poem, I knew it would be special due to the concision of the language and the way in which…
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Olivia Laing’s To the River – A Midsummer meander
Laing’s To the River is a travelogue of sorts as the writer sets out on a midsummer morning to walk the banks of the River Ouse from source to sea. Peppered with memories of a failed relationship, this is a journey through memory, not just hers but those of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, whose diaries…
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Underland by Robert MacFarlane – a fascinating passage into the underworlds.
Described by the Guardian as” A dazzling journey into deep time” this is a story about the worlds underground, which seems naturally more sinister in tone than his other books – perhaps because of the connotations with death, Hades and the spectres that haunt the underworld. It delves deep, both physically and metaphorically. This is…
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Absent Presence by Mahmoud Darwish – a fascinatingly undefinable piece of beauty
Described by the author as “a baffling text”, this is an entirely unique piece of literature. Admittedly, it’s quite difficult to grasp at the outset, written in the second person where the narrator seems to be addressing other forms of himself – but the beauty of the language and the phrasing compelled me to persevere. …
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Hotel du Lac – a light escape by Anita Brookner
Although set in a completely different part of France, this book reminded me of Bonjour Tristesse. Perhaps because of its central character – a female left to her own devices trying to find a foothold in idleness. Narrated by Edith Hope, a middle-aged English writer of clever romance novels, Hotel du Lac opens with…
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Amy Sackville’s Orkney – a haunting week by the seaside.
It’s difficult to decide whether the main feature in this novel is the relationship between the honeymooners or the Orkney seascape. This is a novel with a very voyeuristic feel – a nameless young bride with long, silvery hair sits for hours gazing out at the sea. Inside the rented cottage, her husband Richard, a…
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A Journey round Suffolk – Sebald’s Rings of Saturn reviewed
It’s with some shame that I admit I’ve had this book on my shelf for years but only just got round to reading it. Described as an influence by many of the psychogeographers that fill my bookshelves, I was expecting great things. Based in August 1992, this piece of writing weaves history and landscape together…
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Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin: Selected Poems. A Review
This is an extensive selection of poems, many of which feel like the poetic interpretation of a Chagall painting, full of dream-like, surreal imagery haunted by ghosts and steeped in natural imagery such as ‘The Girl who Married the Reindeer’. The earlier poems at the beginning of the collection are filled with references to agriculture…
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Lantern, Sean Hewitt: A Review
This debut collection feels very much like a prayer in praise of the natural world and the symbiosis between man and nature. Almost every poem is steeped in the language of the natural world and many make direct reference to religion. From the opening poem ‘Leaf’, we are treated to natural images that feel both…
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All the Beggars Rising: Lucy Caldwell
Being Various was one of my favourite books in 2019, so I was intrigued to read more fiction from Lucy Caldwell. Enter All the Beggars Rising. Written from the point of view of Lara, a middle-aged woman with a chequered childhood, it’s a story about struggling to shrug off the ghosts of the past. It’s…
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Penguin Modern Poets Three: A Review
This series aims to introduce readers to new, contemporary poets. I bought this collection as I’m of the belief that one cannot have enough Sharon Olds poetry in their possession and I’d never read any substantial amounts Booker or Shire although I have been a big fan of everything I’ve read or encountered. Suffice to…
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That They May Face the Rising Sun: A Review
Although published in 2002, McGahern’s last novel has no tangible sense of time – apart from a reference to watching ‘Blind Date’ and the recent Enniskillen bombing, this could be set anytime in the 20th century. Set in rural Leitrim amongst a smattering of houses around a lake, this is a novel where time is…
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Christmas in Austin: A Review
Centred around the four Essinger family as they descend upon their family home for Christmas, this is Markovtiz’s seventh novel and a typically incisive examination of the tensions in familial relationships. With each member of the family given their own turn at the narrative we get an insight into the conflict between living a life…
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Big Sur – A Review
Big Sur is the quasi-autobiographical tale of Jack Duluoz who tries to escape his life in San Francisco by seeking solitude in a cabin the wilds of Big Sur. Expecting a lyrical exploration of adventures in the wilderness, I settled down in the dark night at Deetjens on Big Sur with the copy I’d picked…
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Put that Phone Away! Review of Cal Newport’s ‘Digital Minimalism’
Everyone knows that social media is making us unhappy. If like me, you’ve tried to put your phone away, cut down on social media use etc only to fail miserably after a couple of days, you’ll understand the frustration of feeling like you’re controlled by the need to ‘stay connected’. What makes this book such…
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Melmoth by Sarah Perry: A Review
It’s not very often that the protagonist of a novel is described with disgust but yet manages to elicit our sympathies, but that is just one of the many astonishing things about this wonderful book. The central character is Helen Franklin, a fairly pitiable woman in her early 40s working as a translator in Prague,…
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Being Various: A Review
Being Various is a collection of new, especially commissioned short stories curated by Lucy Caldwell. It takes in the whole island, with the list of contributors reading like a who’s who of award-winning contemporary Irish short story writers. Kevin Barry’s ‘Who’s Dead McCarthy’ brings Dublin to life with a poignant vernacular whilst Eimear McBride plays…
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Selected Poems: A Review
My first encounter with Paterson’s work was his second collection, God’s Gift to Women, a Poetry Book Society recommendation. One of the things I love most about that collection is the way Paterson has mixed a whole host of different elements to create a real poetry personality – there are references to ancient Greek mythology…
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Stinging Fly Stories: A Review
This collection of short stories was published in 2018 and takes some of the best stories published in the pages of The Stinging Fly since its inception in 1998. Featuring works by writers who won, were shortlisted and longlisted for the 2019 Sunday Times Short Story Award, (Danielle McLaughlin, Kevin Barry and Wendy Erskine respectively)…
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A Book of Migrations
From the opening anecdotes comparing the veins on a stranger’s hands to earthworms, it’s clear that Solnit intends to dig under the topsoil and put the notion of ‘Irishness’ under the microscope. That it is so enjoyable to read is due to the beauty of her descriptive prose and her knack for breathing life into…
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Yiyun Li, ‘A Thousand Years of Good Prayers’
In this collection of short stories, Li examines the reality of daily life in modern China, opening our eyes to a world where society is trying to balance the weight of tradition with the fast pace of modern life. In ‘Extra’, a lonely middle-aged woman finds herself abandoned in a wilderness of strangers, dehumanised and…
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Lethal White: A Review
Unsettling from the very start, the fourth book in the Cormoran Strike series takes a little while to find its feet. When a mentally distressed young man explodes into Strike’s office requesting help on finding out about a crime he may have witnessed as a child, Strike feels compelled to help, in part due to…
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The Weather in Normal
This is a collection centred around space – the space in time between now and Etter’s childhood, the space of the great Illinois prairies and the space on the page that Etter uses so masterfully. ‘Night Ode’, the opening poem in the collection sets out the stall – the poems that follow will explore nostalgia,…
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Selfie
At the risk of using hyperbole, this book will change the way you look at the world. I can say, without exaggeration, that it is possibly the most interesting book I’ve ever read. Storr sets out to examine raised suicide rates in the west by studying our relationship with the notion of self, starting with…
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Carol Ann Duffy, The World’s Wife: A Review
Although published twenty years ago, this collection still feels incredibly fresh and contemporary. Due to its place on A Level set text lists in the UK, the poems in this collection are probably familiar to many poetry fans, so there’s no need for a long introduction. In this collection Duffy takes a whole host of…
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Parks in Madrid
One of the most surprising things about living in Madrid was the sheer choice of parks available. There were so many I don’t think I managed them all (even though we allocated a week one July to exploring them). So, apologies if your favourite isn’t listed – it may be I never made it…or, more…
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Florist at Midnight
This is a sublime collection, redolent of a masterfully arranged bouquet – no sparsity, beautiful details and gathered together in a way that draws out every nuance. The title poem is full of darkness, sinister in its use of anthropomorphism. This is a feature across the collection as Maguire humanises a number of different plants…
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Asylum, Sean Borodale: A Review
Before beginning the collection, I was struck by the title. I knew that it was written while Borodale explored the Somerset caving systems, but I wondered what the connection with Asylum could be – is Borodale making the suggestion that we are safer underground? The sheer number of questions in the opening poem ‘Rehearsal at St Cuthbert’s Swallet’…
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John Burnside ‘All One Breath’
Published in 2014, this is Burnside’s 13th (!) collection and weaves familiar topics (death, perception) with the grounded detail so typical of his work. Divided into four sections, the collection moves through a journey of self-exploration – it’s an emotionally tiring read, unsettling and enlightening in equal measure. The opening section is titled ‘Self-Portrait as…
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‘The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx’ Review
‘The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx’ is a song to feminism. It’s not a paean as such – it’s too subtle for that in its messages. It feels fresh and surprising even as it twists and turns and puts the reader through a mangle. The opening poem ‘The True Story of Eleanor Marx’ is playful…
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‘Passport’ Review
This collection really resonated with me. Perhaps this is due to the themes of moving away from home and living in a foreign country that I relate closely to, but I agree with Vicki Feaver’s description of it as a collection that is both “unsettling and often incredibly moving.” The collection opens with the quote…
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Laos Adventures
Visiting Luang Prabang was like stepping into another world – lush jungles and intricate temples. Perfect for recharging the batteries!
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Assembly Lines by Jane Commane: Reviewed
There is a very strong sense of place in this collection – almost enough to term it psychogeographical. The post-industrial landscape of the Midlands lingers on the fringes of most poems, taking centre stage for many. Commane sets out her stall strongly from the very start. The opening poem presents a gritty world with lines…
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Mercados of Madrid
Spain is famous for its markets – but they’re not all about fresh food. Many of the city’s best eating experiences are to be found tucked away in stalls in the food markets. Here are my top four: Mercado San Miguel Just beside Plaza Mayor, this used to be a whole sale market, but it…
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Mountains of the Mind
Regular readers of this page will know I’m a huge fan of Robert MacFarlane, so I was really excited to get my hands on his first book. Although it’s a little more scientific in parts than I was expecting, it’s still filled with poetic descriptions and enlightening observations. The book opens with an anecdote about…
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Milkman: A Review
I’d read a lot about this book before picking it up myself – that it was too obscure, too literary (since when has that become a bad thing?!?), so I was a little dubious before starting. I flicked through the first page before getting my hands on the whole book, and was instantly hooked. The…
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Cuenca
About two hours west of Madrid, Cuenca is one of Spain’s most memorable cities. A World Heritage Site, it’s famous for its hanging houses (or casas colgadas), with their wooden balconies which hang out over the sheer cliffs of the gorge, but it’s the location that makes it so remarkable, with its old centre perched…
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Dostoyevsky Wannabes Cities: Bristol Review
If you’ve not yet encountered Dostoyevsky Wannabe, I’d highly recommend them. A small, independent press based in Manchester, they’re at the vanguard of accessible, innovative literature, producing work at a prolific rate (51 books in four years) One of their more popular projects is the Cities series, where they invite poets to collaborate to produce…
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Allen Ginsberg – Howl: A Review
I’ve ALWAYS wanted to visit San Francisco, primarily because its synonymous with the Beat writers, who I was obsessed with as a teenager. Every year, I revisit Kerouac’s On The Road, but I realised it’s been a long time since I picked up Ginsberg’s Howl. Wondering if it still held the same magic to thirties me…
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Lavinia Greenlaw: A World Where News Travelled Slowly
I recently listened to an old Scottish Poetry Library podcast with Lavinia Greenlaw (if you’ve never tuned in, you must. They really allow the poets to open up on their art and influences) and was really struck by the way she talked about growing up in Essex and the impact her scientific background has had…
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Atlantic Donegal
One of my favourite things about returning home for a visit is the opportunity to revisit the awe-inspiring beaches of Donegal. Tucked away in the North-West of Ireland, this part of the land has some of the most spectacular beaches I’ve ever seen. In some ways, although the weather is ‘changeable’ (read ‘ can be…
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The Woman in the Window
I’m a sucker for a thriller I can devour in an afternoon, and from the back cover, this looked promising. With quotes of praise from Stephen King, Gillian Flynn and Val McDermid, my expectations were high. The opening chapter immediately intrigued. Developing in a manner similar to Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’, as the protagonist spies on…
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24 Horas en Madrid
I’m really excited to be heading back to Madrid for a visit this weekend and to dive back into life in a HUGE metropolis. Obviously, the main attraction is reconnecting with all our friends, but I’m planning on visiting a few favourite old haunts and interesting new places. In the process of noting down all…
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Parallax, Sinead Morrissey
Morrissey’s T.S.Eliot Prize-winning fifth collection is defined by the poet at the outset as Parallax (Astron.) Apparent displacement, or difference in the apparent position, of an object, caused by actual change (or difference) of position of the point of observation. It’s a collection about perception and paradoxes, opening with 1801, inspired by Dorothy Wordsworth’s ‘The Grasmere…
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Faro
I’ll admit that expectations were low. I’d visited Portugal many times, but avoided the Algarve, believing it to be over-touristed and lacking in anything cultural. Oh, how I was wrong! Faro is a compact, coastal town with typically Mediterranean paved streets winding towards the sea. On our approach, we were bemused by the amount of…
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Leontia Flynn: Profit and Loss
Leontia Flynn’s third collection was first published in 2011, but it’s taken a while for us to come into contact. In general, I try to avoid reviews of poetry collection before reading a book and in this case, I think it was a wise decision. Not because the reviews weren’t excellent – they were, most…
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Europa
Sean O’Brien’s collection Europa comes at a fitting time for a poetic exploration of European and British identity. It’s a heavy read, moving across the continent, but still retaining the ability to focus in on the details in breathtaking and meaningful ways. The collection opens with ‘You Are Now Entering Europa’ – a title which…
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Coimbra
Our visit to Coimbra was an accident. A happy accident, but an accident none-the-less. With a close friend choosing to marry in Cascais, we decided to venture into the parts of Portugal between Porto and Lisboa and Coimbra seemed an ideal location. A little bit of research told us it was a lively university town…
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Selected Poems by Kate Clanchy
It is the delicacy with which she transforms the mundane that makes Clanchy one of my favourite poets and this selection opens with ‘Slattern’ from her debut collection of the same name. In terms of the sequencing of the collection, this is a beautiful note on which to open, where she explores the notion…
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The Wild Places
One of the greatest things about my MA course was being introduced to the joys of sublime non-fiction writing. For me, Macfarlane is at the top of an illustrious list. I came across Landmarks when researching the notion of an ‘untranslateable’ word for my poetry manuscript and fell in love with his poetic turns of…
Keep readingThe Bricks that Built the Houses
I’ll start by admitting something – I really wanted to dislike this book. Not because I’m not a fan of Kate Tempest’s work – I find her performance style invigorating and was swept away by the anger in the voice of Let Them Eat Chaos. So, why was I so keen to find fault? Jealousy? Resentment?…
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Theatre Work
I’ve been commissioned to photograph theatre events with my work used in publicity materials.
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Cáceres
Cáceres, Extremadura. The first thing anyone said when they heard we were going was “The meat there is amazing!” But, as the thermometer in the hirecar pushed past 45 degrees, cured pork was the last thing on my mind. In fact, all I could think about was ice. Or an ice-cold glass of beer. Wandering…
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Mérida
To say I was excited about Mérida is a bit of an understatement. Roman Iberia, in all its wonder. And the ruins did not disappoint. The amphitheatre and theatre are spectacular, but a lot of the rest is ruined – which may seem obvious, but when you traipse around the city in the July heat…
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Trujillo
Ornate sandstone buildings, meandering cobbled lanes and cranes’ nests – Trujillo feels much like Caceres, but without the warmth. Perhaps this is due to the different tones in the brickwork, or the fact that its buildings feel a little less loved, but it feels a less hospitable place. With it being a Sunday afternoon, the…
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About Me
Hi, I’m Lillie. Previously a magazine editor, I became a full-time mother and freelance writer in 2017. When I’m not spending time with my wonderful kids and husband, I love writing about my fascination with food, adventure, and living a healthy and organized life! Read more
Nicola Heaney 