The Met Office Advises Caution

In this assured debut, Rebecca Watts positions herself where Wordsworth, Frost and Hughes have stood before her, and with fresh perspective, a wholly original tone, and an openness to the possibilities of form reinvigorates and remaps the landscapes of English nature poetry for a twenty-first-century audience. From ecology, social history and wide-open spaces to the domestic and intimate, these poems approach their often-unusual subjects with the clarity and matter-of-factness of Simon Armitage and a wit that recalls U. A. Fanthorpe, Dorothy Parker and Stevie Smith, spinning memorable scenes and vivid images from the material of plain language. Animals, as familiars and omens, abound. Weather states anticipate and direct human dramas. Environments as various as Antarctica and an old tinder box are enlivened under the analytical and tender watch of a poet influenced as much by science and realism as by Romanticism. As landscaper, orienteer and companion-guide, Watts finds new ways of negotiating the complex territories of our physical and emotional worlds, and invites us as readers to accompany her on the journey.