Ground Water

Matthew Hollis author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Bloodaxe Books Ltd

Published:29th Jan '04

Should be back in stock very soon

Ground Water cover

In this sparkling debut, Matthew Hollis immerses us in the undercurrents of our lives. Love and loss are buoyed by a house full of milk, an orchard underwater, the laws of walking on water. Rainwater, floodwater, flux – the liquid landscapes which shift relentlessly in Ground Water – threaten and comfort by turns. Matthew Hollis's poems are brimming with courage in adversity as well as the promise of renewal, culminating in a powerful sequence about a father's struggle with terminal illness. Matthew Hollis’s first collection Ground Water was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, Whitbread Poetry Award and Forward Prize for Best First Collection. His second collection, Earth House, followed in 2023.

An impressive debut…the metaphorical language is finely judged, touching both the landscapes and the people crawling its surface with a shrewd but never less than sympathetic gaze. -- D.J.Taylor * Guardian *
Matthew Hollis shows an impressive confidence in the promptings of the imagination and no desire at all to ingratiate himself. Craft, not attitude, is what counts. Poems are sometimes called “quiet” when really they’re inaudible. His are genuinely quiet, drawing in the ear to enjoy, for example, his artful rendering in slowed folk-song rhythm of the terror and excitement of floods. -- Sean O'Brien * Sunday Times *

  • Short-listed for Guardian First Book Award 2004

ISBN: 9781852246570

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

64 pages