Ground Water
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. Ground Water is a startling first collection from a remarkable new poet. Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award (the first time for a poetry book), Whitbread Poetry Award and Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
Matthew Hollis was born in Norwich in 1971, and now lives in London. His debut Ground Water (Bloodaxe Books, 2004) was shortlisted for the Guardian
First Book Award, the Whitbread Poetry Award and the Forward Prize for
Best First Collection; it was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. He
is co-editor of Strong Words: Modern Poets on Modern Poetry (Bloodaxe Books, 2000) and 101 Poems Against War (Faber & Faber, 2003), and editor of Selected Poems of Edward Thomas (Faber & Faber, 2011). Now All Roads Lead to France: the Last Years of Edward Thomas
(Faber & Faber, UK, 2011; Norton, US, 2012) won the Costa Biography
Award and the H. W. Fisher Biography Prize, was Radio 4 Book of the
Week and Sunday Times Biography of the Year. He has published the handmade and letterpress pamphlets Stones (Incline Press, 2016), East (Clutag Press, 2016), Leaves (Hazel Press, 2020) and Havener (Bonnefant Press, 2022). Leaves was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2021. He is the author of The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem
(Faber & Faber, UK, Norton, US, 2022). He was Poetry Editor at
Faber & Faber from 2012 to 2023. His second book-length collection, Earth House, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2023 and was longlisted for The Laurel Prize 2023.
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