Nine Arches Press
Adventures in poetry
Blackbird Singing at Dusk
Wendy Pratt
The Observer Poetry Book of the Month, November 2024
ISBN: 978-1-916760-02-8
eISBN: 978-1-916760-03-5
Price: £11.99
Publication date: 28th November 2024
Format: Paperback / eBook
Territories: World
Extent: 72pp
DCF: Poetry Collections
Cover artwork: ‘Hidden in the Crab Apples' © Gary and Heather Ramskill www.littleramstudio.etsy.com
Blackbird Singing at Dusk by Wendy Pratt is an illuminating and lyrical exploration of place within nature; of Northern rural working-class lives, the female body, and of the ancestors and history still close to the surface, just beneath where our feet touch the earth. Moving through both landscapes and human lives, these poems weigh the impact of loss and consider the circular, deep nature of time itself; how lifetimes can be measured – whether in jackdaw, beech tree or even glacier time.
From the silent sentinels of boulders to peels of birdsong “stopping the world”, Wendy Pratt’s archaeological attention to detail draws us into an intimate elegy, mindful of the connections of earth and people, the living and the dead. The wide horizons of her poems weave the heartbeat of working days and the rich inheritances of love in scribbled notes and domestic prayers – all that remains behind long after, marking us with grief for a lost parent or a baby daughter. These remarkable poems of solace consider what it is to endure and find reassurance in a rural land “quartered by barn owls and kestrels,” with its ever-shifting seasons and skies, its permanence of stone and soil.
Praise for Blackbird Singing at Dusk:
'Here is marvellous poetry that explores deep history and loss; here is the echoing power of boulders and fields shaped into shining stanzas on page after page. And here is the tight redemptive language of anger and memory.' - Ian McMillan
‘Wendy Pratt's Blackbird Singing at Dusk is a beautiful, cerebral book. Here are dream-scenarios, misty communication with those lost, hints and whispers of otherworldly things. Time wide-ranges through these intelligent, brilliantly structured poems – an expanse of ages transports us from glacier to vanished lake to train tracks. Here are the tellings and restorations of stories of blood and bone, of “the isotopes that sit in the teeth”, of past, present and future selves, of Pratt’s explorations of what makes her her, what makes us us. Here is pain framed in so many amazing ways. This book will absorb your heart, mind and soul. Each poem will enter you like a dart.’ - Jane Burn
‘Blackbird Singing at Dusk takes us on a journey into radiant, storied, living landscapes. Step into valleys threaded through with the voices of wrens and the blackbird’s music, where the ‘lake people’ have left their prehistoric traces. Wendy Pratt’s archaeological poems and pride in her working-class roots nod to Seamus Heaney, while celebrating the mother-tongue of strong women who have worked the land. These haunting poems will linger long in your memory.’ – Yvonne Reddick
Wendy Pratt is a poet, author and creative writing facilitator living on the North Yorkshire coast. She is the author of The Ghost Lake, a narrative non fiction exploration of landscape and belonging, published by The Borough Press. She is also the author of five collections of poetry. Her 2021 collection, When I Think of My Body as a Horse won the Poetry Business International Book and Pamphlet competition. Her latest collection, Blackbird Singing at Dusk, will be published by Nine Arches in 2024. Wendy is also the founder and editor in chief of Spelt, a print magazine that seeks to celebrate and validate the rural experience through creative non fiction and poetry. Wendy is represented by Caro Clarke at Portobello Literary.
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