Rhizodont

Katrina Porteous was born in Aberdeen, grew up in Co. Durham, and has lived on the Northumberland coast since 1987. She read History at Cambridge and afterwards studied in the USA on a Harkness Fellowship. Many of the poems in her first collection, The Lost Music (Bloodaxe Books, 1996), focus on the Northumbrian fishing community, about which Katrina has also written in prose in The Bonny Fisher Lad (The People’s History, 2003). Katrina also writes in Northumbrian dialect, and has recorded her long poem, The Wund an’ the Wetter, on CD with piper Chris Ormston (Iron Press, 1999). Her second full-length collection from Bloodaxe, Two Countries (2014), was shortlisted for the Portico Prize for Literature in 2015.Katrina has been involved in many collaborations with other artists, including public art for Seaham, Co. Durham, with sculptor Michael Johnson, and two books with maritime artist James Dodds, Longshore Drift (Jardine Press, 2005) and The Blue Lonnen (Jardine Press, 2007). She often performs with musicians, including Chris Ormston, Alistair Anderson and Alexis Bennett. She is particularly known for her radio-poetry, much of it produced by Julian May. One of these poems, Horse, with electronic music by Peter Zinovieff, first performed at Sage Gateshead for the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival 2011, is published as an artists’ book and CD, with prints by Olivia Lomenech Gill (Windmillsteads Books, 2014).Katrina’s third full-length collection, Edge (Bloodaxe Books, 2019), draws on three collaborations commissioned for performance in Life Science Centre Planetarium, Newcastle, between 2013 and 2016, with multi-channel electronic music by Peter Zinovieff: Field, Sun and Edge. Sun was part of NUSTEM’s Imagining the Sun project for schools and the wider public (Northumbria University, 2016). Edge, a poem in four moons incorporating sounds collected from space missions, was broadcast as a Poetry Please Special on BBC Radio 4 in 2013. Her fourth poetry book from Bloodaxe, Rhizodont, will be published in June 2024.

• 9 Introduction13 How the Fishes Listen14 IngredientsBOOK I: CARBONIFEROUSI Horden – Seaham17 Tinkers’ Fires18 Kittycouldhavebeen20 Tiny Lights21 Wildlife23 Coastal Erosion24 A Short Walk from the Sea’s Edge26 Painted Ladies27 Speckled Wood28 HermeneuticsII North Shields29 Wooden Doll30 Saa’t32 Low Light34 Shields GutIII Low Hauxley – Warkworth35 Passage Migrants37 Northern Wheatear38 Tudelum39 Sand Martins40 Bloody Cranesbill41 Cormorant42 Cubby43 Birds45 Fog46 Wishbone47 Linnets48 The Braid49 Grey Heron50 The Auld Watter51 Full Tide on the CoquetIV Beadnell – Bamburgh52 Can53 Off Beadnell Point54 Sandylowper55 A Lang Way Hyem67 Goldcrests68 Arguments69 The Long Line73 A Hut a Byens75 The Tide ClockV Holy Island – Cocklawburn77 The Fulmar78 The Old Lifeboat House79 Many Hands80 Gleaners81 Philadelphia82 Gateway83 Red List Species84 Absences85 Woven86 Beblowe87 Anonymous88 Dig89 Arctic Terns91 Begin Again92 Cocklawburn93 #rhizodontBOOK II: INVISIBLE EVERWHERE96 Organic97 Sea Chant 197 Sea Chant 298 The Website at the End of the World99 INGENIOUS99 1 Autonomous99 I100 II Landscape for an Autonomous Vehicle100 III Sellafield ‘Legacy’ Storage Ponds101 IV CARMA102 V MIRRAX103 2 Space103 I ADR103 II104 III Sample Analysis on Mars105 IV Ingenuity Has Photographed Perseverance106 3 Cybernetics106 I106 II106 III107 IV Moon108 V Human109 VI Autonomous109 VII110 VIII I Want to Step Inside You, Computer111 IX112 Wave113 UNDER THE ICE113 1 Unseen114 2 Float114 3 Thwaites115 4 Antarctica Without Its Ice116 5 Five Eyes117 6 Cosmogenic Nuclide118 7 Basal Shear119 8 Invisible Mending120 9 Ice Core120 10 Waves121 11 Numerical Ice Sheet Modelling122 12 Melt123 13 Remote Sensing127 Notes154 Acknowledgements158 Biographical note

Katrina Porteous is that rare, robust perennial bloom, a poet whose lyricism is founded upon clarity of expression and precise attention to the spoken word, whose intellectual sophistication is clothed in simplicity and whose themes are of universal significance, yet rooted in a lifelong commitment to local community and the Northumbrian landscape.