Description

Although born and raised in an urban environment, it is the dramatic land and waterscapes of the Lake District, where Polly Atkin lives, which have given rise to ‘Much With Body’. A life-long negotiation with a set of chronic health conditions brings both an urgency and a necessity to her mission to show us beauty, but to warn us that we can’t expect nature to save us or even share in our pain. We know that the world of these poems is no blithe pastoral but nature red in tooth and claw, as dangerous as it is alluring. There are totemic animals throughout, but they are often elusive. The land and waterscapes themselves are strange, as if seen through refracting lenses. Wild swimming is not an indulgence but a necessary analgesic, the ice cold water releasing the body ‘from the tyranny of gravity’.