Tonight the Summer's Over

Rory Waterman was born in Belfast in 1981, grew up mainly in Lincolnshire, and lives in Nottingham. His previous full-length collections, all published by Carcanet, are: Tonight the Summer’s Over (2013), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for a Seamus Heaney Award; Sarajevo Roses (2017), which was shortlisted for the Ledbury Forte Prize for Second Collections; Sweet Nothings (2020) and and Come Here to This Gate (2024), described in the Guardian as ‘a wise and deeply satisfying book’.. He is also a press critic, and has published several books on modern and contemporary poetry. He is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at Nottingham Trent University. Author photo by Thomas Curtis.

• NavigatingFamily Business Visiting Grandpa Retrospect What Passing Bells Rebirth Island In the Avenue of Limes An Email from Your Mother Two Growing Pains1. Distance 2. For My Father 3. Ireland, 10 Access Visit Seeing Him Off at the StationCraigmillar Castle at Dusk Faroe Islands: Notes for Three PhotographsNettlesReverdieSeeing Baby Emrys in GwyneddSalisbury, After the ArgumentFor R.S. ThomasComing HomeFrom a Birmingham Council FlatBroadlandWhere Were You When...The OutingsA SuicideWest Summerdale Ave53° 09'33.17" N, 0° 25'33.18" WTo Help the Birds through WinterThe LakeShrine for a Young Soldier, Castle DrogoOn Derry City Walls, 1992UnfoldingMarstrandWinter Morning, Connecticut A Wedding Photograph Back in the Village Compulsions The Fields over Winceby Battlefield Spring Shower, Metheringham Fen The Beck Keepsakes ‘You’re a shower of bastards’ Note to Self: Chip Shop Battered Sausage and Other Meat Stopping for a Moment on Exmoor Back Infant Stranger Sendai Fall Hallowed Turf The Shipwreck Memorial a Mile from Town Over the Heath Out to the Fen

'Rory Waterman writes poems of the kind there'll always be aneed for poems that require skill to make but don't insist on it, thatcombine keen-eyed observation and immediately graspable shades offeeling in a memorable way. Waterman's is a very appealing voice,laconic, unillusioned and vulnerable. His world is a recognisable andconvincing one, his rueful, sometimes harsh sincerity is palpable, andhe deserves to be read by anyone to whom these things still matter.'Alan Jenkins