Böcker av Sarah Watkinson

A fresh look at the natural world, as seen through the eyes of a poet-scientist. Longlisted for the Laurel Prize 2022."In this vivid, wide-ranging and reflexively-aware collection, Sarah Watkinson is a poet who is also a scientist, rather than a scientist writing poetry. She brings knowledge and experience, professional and personal, to her poetry and demonstrates mastery of her medium. She addresses important and profound themes but always with a light touch - and humour is never far away. This is an impressive first collection - and a model of informed nature writing." Steve Ely, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, University of Huddersfield"In this collection, Sarah Watkinson provides a unique glimpse of the natural world, seen through the eyes of a poet-scientist. Most of us are simply incapable of putting into words how we really feel about the animals and plants we study. Thank goodness we have Sarah to do it for us." Lindsay Turnbull, Director of Undergraduate Biology Teaching, University of Oxford

A contemporary Romance that asks questions about the way we live in the age of mass extinction - in one life, do we fight for place or planet? An absorbing read about a couple torn two ways, with vivid evocations of sweeping landscapes, family loyalties and a dash of science.Impetuous, rich, and something of a snob, Olivia buys a hill farm and dedicates herself to nature recovery. A tragic accident has left her a widow at 29. No one can compare to the young husband she adored; so, defiantly, she vows never to remarry. Instead she will devote herself to building up the farm as a beacon of restorative agriculture. Her resolve is challenged when she is introduced to television environmentalist and man-with-a-mission Andrew, a hero she has long admired but never before met in real life. Fate, in the shape of land-use politics, brings him to work on her farm, along with his troubled teenage son. A passionate affair develops and runs its course over a moorland summer, under the worried gaze of family and friends on both sides. But Andrew's mission is global, Olivia's vision local; what can their happy ending look like?

These poems explore the boundary between science and poetry, and juxtapose the lexicon of organic chemistry, in particular, with a botanical discourse which is more conventional in poetry, but which the scientific treatment defamiliarises. Far from being abstruse and heavy, the treatment here lightens the subject with an imaginative playfulness. -- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru