Battery Rocks ‘a meditation on nature, risk, swimming & the sea’, was published by Seren in July 2024. Since then it’s won the Arthur Welton Award, been recommended in The Guardian, featured on BBC Radio 4’s Open Country & Daljit Nagra selected the collection as book of the month on his Radio 4 Extra programme Poetry Extra. It’s been a best-seller in bookshops, had gorgeous reviews & was reprinted after just four months. I’m amazed. I’m also very grateful.

Here’s a poem ‘Morning, Far West’ from Battery Rocks. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Morning, Far West

The sun’s muffled, milky, creeping across fields,

coasts. Curlews sense morning as it rolls from

the harbour, puffs of it, heavy-damp. Gulls ruffle

themselves like small dogs. The pearl of light’s quiet;

a distant radio searching for the shipping forecast,

dial lost to mizzle. The lamp’s too bring for the

hour but gives guidance, lifts a soft corner, slowly,

as if putting an arm out of bed, testing if it really is

morning, allowing the idea in. And beyond, the

headland, a pale thing, half-imagined.