Look at the collars with real names,
Books, games, a stainless steel trophy
Lifted, discarded, then bought by me
Knowing I wasn’t the first or best
And that envy can be laid to rest,
Here in the warm room of no claims.


from ‘Charity’

Will Eaves’ first book of poems explores several continents, moods and stages of life. Common experience – of growing up, growing older, losing a parent, being in love, enjoying the natural world in all its nearness and remoteness – provides his themes. Wherever they are set, in the Australian bush or in a West Country sickroom, the poems keep faith with the consolations that come from close observation and stillness. Well-loved authors and books appear suddenly; hair-raising anecdotes and football matches become occasions for elegiac comedy; music and domestic ritual raise ghosts.

Both formal and informal, funny and sad, these lyrical poems seek out a strangeness in the everyday: in the transformational territory of childhood and the equally uncertain adult world of grief and loss.

Cover image: Isolated House, 4 (detail), copyright © Harry Adams, by kind permission of the artist.

Evening Lesson    11
Small Hours    12
Demonstration Day    13
English    14
Majesty of Nature    15
From Weymouth    16
Bloody Ill    17
Evacuees    18
A Kilburn Massage    19
Kickabout    20
Salomon’s Offertory    21
Three Flies    22
Summit    23
Accommodation for Owls    24
Spider    25
Charity    26
Skimpole Abroad    27
Ariel in Texas    28



Hornets    31
Chestnuts    32
Gold Coast    33
Roman Road    34
The Former Resident    35
The Grass on the Other Side    36
Curve    37
Grounds    38
Crater    39
100,000,000 AD    40
A Difficult Birth    41
Cracked Happiness    43
Any Impediment    45
Bird Song    46
Kin Limbo    47
The Fight in the Lake    48
Horus and Janus    49
Clifftops, Folkestone    50



Avocado    53
Punk Revolution    54
The Field    55
The Clock    56
Elegies Around Noon    57
Footsore    58
Fantastic Blue    59
Home    60
Silverflash    61
Powers of the Minor Gods    62
Aberdyfi    63
A Year Later    64