by Candlestick Press.
There’s something at once elemental and child-like about moving through water – whether we paddle like a dog or can manage an elegant crawl.
These delightful poems explore the many joys of swimming in pools, rivers and oceans. We travel all the way from a child learning to swim at home on a piano stool to a swimmer in a public baths which become suddenly splendid:
“the pool spread like a sunken ballroom,
marbled with the winter sun and here,
the deep end’s edge
where I hang breathless,”from ‘What I Think About When I’m Swimming’ by Hannah Lowe.
Swimming is a pleasure and a privilege, and these poems remind us that when we take to the water it is not just our bodies that are changed.
Poems by Vievee Francis, Paul Henry, Ranjit Hoskote, Hannah Lowe, Nicholas Murray, Katrina Naomi, Jay Parini, Katherine Pierpoint, Stevie Smith and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch.
Cover illustration by Sara Boccaccini Meadows.
Donation to Surfers Against Sewage.
Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing beautiful ‘Instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets. Based in Nottingham in the UK, they’ve been making their mini-anthologies since 2008. Their pamphlets are supplied with an envelope for posting, a bookmark for a special message and an ‘Instead of a card’ sticker to seal the back of the envelope for a lovely finishing touch. All items are collated in a biodegradable cellophane wrapper which is certified to the European (EN13432) norm for industrially compostable packaging and by Vincotte to the OK BIOBASED standard for sustainable, biodegradable film. All their pamphlets are printed in the UK on FSC-accredited paper.