Caroline Bird has seven previous volumes published by Carcanet. Her sixth collection, The Air Year, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2020 and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize and the Costa Prize. Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 TS Eliot Prize and the Ted Hughes Award. A two-time winner of the Foyles Young Poets Award, her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes was published in 2002 when she was 15. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2001 and the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008 and 2010. She was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics.In 2023, she won a Cholmondeley Award. Her Selected Poems, Rookie, was published in 2022.

• ContentsThe VideosLast TuesdayPeakedWild FlowersThe Golden KidsImpartial InformationExpecting RainThe Monogamy OpticianThe Oven Glove TreeBow Your Head and CryHead GirlRoad SignsBright Winter Mornings in Oxford TownStage KissSeesawPenelope’s ChairD.N. eh?Hard TimesWeather VainGrudgeSun SettlersThe Fall of LondonHouse and SoulOur InfidelityThe DoomPerspectivesPoetry as a Competitive SportWedding GuestFrom the Sewer to the Sea: ‘A Healing Progress’DetoxPoet in the ClassBlame the PoodleShort StoryLunacyThe Perfect ManReminder NoticeMr BirdFlat MateThe University Poetry SocietyI Married Green-EyesFamiliar GroundWomen in ProgressSky NewsCloset AffairInner-city PlotThe Alcoholic Marching SongCompany of WomenXI TyrantA Love Song

Watering the words - Keith RichmondWatering Can by Caroline Bird (Carcanet, £9.95)Caroline Bird arrives, as William Wordsworth had it in Intimations of Immortality, trailing clouds of glory. She was born in 1986, brought up in Leeds, went to school in York and is now reading English at St Catherine's College, Oxford. She was a winner of the Foyles Young Poet of the Year Award in 1999, when she was 13, and the Peterloo Poets Competition for Young Poets three years later, when she also picked up an Eric Gregory Award. Her first collection, Looking Through Letterboxes, was published in 2002 and her second, Trouble Came to the Turnip, appeared in 2006 and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Plays she has written have had rehearsed readings at the Royal Court, student productions in Oxford and performances on the Edinburgh Fringe.Like the poems in Trouble Came to the Turnip, which was favourably reviewed on these pages, there is an extraordinary energy about the pieces in this collection which were written, she says, over three years, 'time divided between studying English and building my life as a poet.' Her studies have inspired a few of the poems in this collection: Perspectives is a version, albeit a very loose one about young drug addicts, of the Old English lament Deor and Bright Winter Mornings in Oxford Town, her first sonnet, 'also happens to be one of my rudest poems to date': 'Remember when I drank that rum and black / with dirty lips so dumb and kissable? / Now I’m another gown upon the rack. / My sheets are bleached by the invisible. / After I bathe, I neatly shave my crack. / I dress. I take my library books back.'On display here are Bird's characteristic and surrealistic flights of fancy – '[I] started seeing things: saints with erections / playing netball with elephants'; 'and swans / – as I said – were exploding by the river' – lots of fresh, sharp images – 'the chip boy wore a gutted face / sanctified in grease'; 'Narcissus, a grown man, / with stretchmarks on his heart' – and, in poems like Head Girl, a wry sense of humour.Watering Can, she says, shows 'what I believe in, as well as what I’m fighting against. Essentially, it’s a collection about trying to be happy. So, in a way, it’s the saddest book I've ever written. It's about watching my friends, and myself, turn into adults, about the gap between who you are and who you want to be.' It's a more grown up, sophisticated and polished collection: 'Tomorrow / giant watering cans will drip from cranes / into our respective gardens where our respective / partners will be dancing, wet with innocence.'

Caroline Bird has seven previous volumes published by Carcanet. Her sixth collection, The Air Year, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2020 and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize and the Costa Prize. Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 TS Eliot Prize and the Ted Hughes Award. A two-time winner of the Foyles Young Poets Award, her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes was published in 2002 when she was 15. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2001 and the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008 and 2010. She was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics.In 2023, she won a Cholmondeley Award. Her Selected Poems, Rookie, was published in 2022.

• ContentsThe VideosLast TuesdayPeakedWild FlowersThe Golden KidsImpartial InformationExpecting RainThe Monogamy OpticianThe Oven Glove TreeBow Your Head and CryHead GirlRoad SignsBright Winter Mornings in Oxford TownStage KissSeesawPenelope’s ChairD.N. eh?Hard TimesWeather VainGrudgeSun SettlersThe Fall of LondonHouse and SoulOur InfidelityThe DoomPerspectivesPoetry as a Competitive SportWedding GuestFrom the Sewer to the Sea: ‘A Healing Progress’DetoxPoet in the ClassBlame the PoodleShort StoryLunacyThe Perfect ManReminder NoticeMr BirdFlat MateThe University Poetry SocietyI Married Green-EyesFamiliar GroundWomen in ProgressSky NewsCloset AffairInner-city PlotThe Alcoholic Marching SongCompany of WomenXI TyrantA Love Song

Watering the words - Keith RichmondWatering Can by Caroline Bird (Carcanet, £9.95)Caroline Bird arrives, as William Wordsworth had it in Intimations of Immortality, trailing clouds of glory. She was born in 1986, brought up in Leeds, went to school in York and is now reading English at St Catherine's College, Oxford. She was a winner of the Foyles Young Poet of the Year Award in 1999, when she was 13, and the Peterloo Poets Competition for Young Poets three years later, when she also picked up an Eric Gregory Award. Her first collection, Looking Through Letterboxes, was published in 2002 and her second, Trouble Came to the Turnip, appeared in 2006 and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Plays she has written have had rehearsed readings at the Royal Court, student productions in Oxford and performances on the Edinburgh Fringe.Like the poems in Trouble Came to the Turnip, which was favourably reviewed on these pages, there is an extraordinary energy about the pieces in this collection which were written, she says, over three years, 'time divided between studying English and building my life as a poet.' Her studies have inspired a few of the poems in this collection: Perspectives is a version, albeit a very loose one about young drug addicts, of the Old English lament Deor and Bright Winter Mornings in Oxford Town, her first sonnet, 'also happens to be one of my rudest poems to date': 'Remember when I drank that rum and black / with dirty lips so dumb and kissable? / Now I’m another gown upon the rack. / My sheets are bleached by the invisible. / After I bathe, I neatly shave my crack. / I dress. I take my library books back.'On display here are Bird's characteristic and surrealistic flights of fancy – '[I] started seeing things: saints with erections / playing netball with elephants'; 'and swans / – as I said – were exploding by the river' – lots of fresh, sharp images – 'the chip boy wore a gutted face / sanctified in grease'; 'Narcissus, a grown man, / with stretchmarks on his heart' – and, in poems like Head Girl, a wry sense of humour.Watering Can, she says, shows 'what I believe in, as well as what I’m fighting against. Essentially, it’s a collection about trying to be happy. So, in a way, it’s the saddest book I've ever written. It's about watching my friends, and myself, turn into adults, about the gap between who you are and who you want to be.' It's a more grown up, sophisticated and polished collection: 'Tomorrow / giant watering cans will drip from cranes / into our respective gardens where our respective / partners will be dancing, wet with innocence.'

Caroline Bird has seven previous volumes published by Carcanet. Her sixth collection, The Air Year, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2020 and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize and the Costa Prize. Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 TS Eliot Prize and the Ted Hughes Award. A two-time winner of the Foyles Young Poets Award, her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes was published in 2002 when she was 15. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2001 and the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008 and 2010. She was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics.In 2023, she won a Cholmondeley Award. Her Selected Poems, Rookie, was published in 2022.

• ContentsThe VideosLast TuesdayPeakedWild FlowersThe Golden KidsImpartial InformationExpecting RainThe Monogamy OpticianThe Oven Glove TreeBow Your Head and CryHead GirlRoad SignsBright Winter Mornings in Oxford TownStage KissSeesawPenelope’s ChairD.N. eh?Hard TimesWeather VainGrudgeSun SettlersThe Fall of LondonHouse and SoulOur InfidelityThe DoomPerspectivesPoetry as a Competitive SportWedding GuestFrom the Sewer to the Sea: ‘A Healing Progress’DetoxPoet in the ClassBlame the PoodleShort StoryLunacyThe Perfect ManReminder NoticeMr BirdFlat MateThe University Poetry SocietyI Married Green-EyesFamiliar GroundWomen in ProgressSky NewsCloset AffairInner-city PlotThe Alcoholic Marching SongCompany of WomenXI TyrantA Love Song

Watering the words - Keith RichmondWatering Can by Caroline Bird (Carcanet, £9.95)Caroline Bird arrives, as William Wordsworth had it in Intimations of Immortality, trailing clouds of glory. She was born in 1986, brought up in Leeds, went to school in York and is now reading English at St Catherine's College, Oxford. She was a winner of the Foyles Young Poet of the Year Award in 1999, when she was 13, and the Peterloo Poets Competition for Young Poets three years later, when she also picked up an Eric Gregory Award. Her first collection, Looking Through Letterboxes, was published in 2002 and her second, Trouble Came to the Turnip, appeared in 2006 and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Plays she has written have had rehearsed readings at the Royal Court, student productions in Oxford and performances on the Edinburgh Fringe.Like the poems in Trouble Came to the Turnip, which was favourably reviewed on these pages, there is an extraordinary energy about the pieces in this collection which were written, she says, over three years, 'time divided between studying English and building my life as a poet.' Her studies have inspired a few of the poems in this collection: Perspectives is a version, albeit a very loose one about young drug addicts, of the Old English lament Deor and Bright Winter Mornings in Oxford Town, her first sonnet, 'also happens to be one of my rudest poems to date': 'Remember when I drank that rum and black / with dirty lips so dumb and kissable? / Now I’m another gown upon the rack. / My sheets are bleached by the invisible. / After I bathe, I neatly shave my crack. / I dress. I take my library books back.'On display here are Bird's characteristic and surrealistic flights of fancy – '[I] started seeing things: saints with erections / playing netball with elephants'; 'and swans / – as I said – were exploding by the river' – lots of fresh, sharp images – 'the chip boy wore a gutted face / sanctified in grease'; 'Narcissus, a grown man, / with stretchmarks on his heart' – and, in poems like Head Girl, a wry sense of humour.Watering Can, she says, shows 'what I believe in, as well as what I’m fighting against. Essentially, it’s a collection about trying to be happy. So, in a way, it’s the saddest book I've ever written. It's about watching my friends, and myself, turn into adults, about the gap between who you are and who you want to be.' It's a more grown up, sophisticated and polished collection: 'Tomorrow / giant watering cans will drip from cranes / into our respective gardens where our respective / partners will be dancing, wet with innocence.'