Earth House
A poetic journey through the landscapes of Britain and Ireland
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Published:27th Apr '23
Should be back in stock very soon
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£12.00(9781780376226)
Matthew Hollis's Earth House is a profound exploration of nature, time, and the intimate connections between humanity and the environment, expressed through evocative poetry.
In the long-awaited collection, Earth House, Matthew Hollis intricately weaves together the landscapes and ecologies of Britain and Ireland. Through his evocative language, he explores how our most personal experiences resonate within the broader cycles of life. The collection begins in the serene slate waters of the north and navigates through various cardinal points, reflecting on the ancient elements that shape our existence. Each poem serves as a meditation on time and the transformative nature of our surroundings.
As the poems unfold, they traverse the expansive skies of the east, the vibrant terrain of a southern city, and the embers of lost places that remain etched in memory. Hollis draws upon a rich tapestry of influences, including Anglo-Saxon verse, Norse and Celtic mythology, and classical philosophy. The result is a profound exploration of the connections between humanity and the environment, capturing the delicate balance between destruction and renewal.
Earth House is not just a reflection on nature but also a contemplation of life’s cycles. It opens with the passing of an old life and culminates in the emergence of a new one. This collection, longlisted for the Laurel Prize 2023, stands as a testament to Hollis's poetic prowess, inviting readers to engage with the timeless themes of existence and our relationship with the remarkable lives of our planet.
It’s taken Matthew Hollis 19 years to produce a successor to his debut collection, Ground Water, but Earth House was worth the wait. Well-nigh elemental in their evocation of time and landscape, the poems can have the effect of making their human protagonists look frail, marginal visitants to an indifferent world. At other times, particularly when Hollis returns to his native East Anglia, they are consummate exercises in psychogeography, where, however ancient the terrain, the people lead the dance. -- D.J. Taylor * The Tablet (Summer Reading) *
Some poets take their time. Matthew Hollis’s second collection Earth House arrives this week 19 full years after his acclaimed debut Ground Water. In the meantime, Hollis has written a well received biography of Edward Thomas, whose poetry is a marked influence on his own. Like Thomas, Hollis writes with an unsentimental love of the natural world, in poems where landscapes he knows well are charged with a personal significance that’s often only hinted at. -- Tristram Fane Saunders * The Daily Telegraph (Poem of the Week) *
Matthew Hollis’s Earth House is concerned with the ways our environment both roots and unroots us. Tied to the language, histories and ecology of Ireland and Britain, it is an elemental and expansive collection that builds from death to the birth of new life … If there is transcendence here it is to be found in the attention to the world around us, its nuance and fragility and our intimate connection to it, the 'cleft between the chassis and the sea'. -- Nikolai Duffy * The Tablet *
ISBN: 9781780375625
Dimensions: 220mm x 140mm x 11mm
Weight: unknown
112 pages
International ed.