Seahouses

In his first collection of poetry, Richard Barnett turns a precise gaze and a musical sensibility on the worlds we inherit and the worlds we make for ourselves. In the award-winning title sequence, the sea sifts and rolls through the dreams of an old man asleep in a deckchair, conjuring a vision of England''s history and our human crossings.

Seahouses is a distinctively English work of low modernism, cranky, eloquent, broken-hearted. It is a book for people who read Hill, but who wish he''d be less marmoreal; people who read Paterson & Robinson, but who wish they''d drop the pose sometimes & fucking well cheer up; people who are smart and musical and angry, but who don''t want to read yet another version of the Duino Elegies or ''The Wood of Suicides''; people who love history, but hate National Trust Houses; people who read nature poetry, but who don''t hate cities; people who walk by the cliffs; people who''ve had their hearts broken, & who''ve broken someone else''s.

Richard Barnett studied medicine in London before becoming a historian, and is now a freelance writer and broadcaster. His history books include The Sick Rose: Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration (Thames & Hudson, 2014).

In his first collection of poetry, Richard Barnett turns a precise gaze and a musical sensibility on the worlds we inherit and the worlds we make for ourselves. In the award-winning title sequence, the sea sifts and rolls through the dreams of an old man asleep in a deckchair, conjuring a vision of England''s history and our human crossings.

Seahouses is a distinctively English work of low modernism, cranky, eloquent, broken-hearted. It is a book for people who read Hill, but who wish he''d be less marmoreal; people who read Paterson & Robinson, but who wish they''d drop the pose sometimes & fucking well cheer up; people who are smart and musical and angry, but who don''t want to read yet another version of the Duino Elegies or ''The Wood of Suicides''; people who love history, but hate National Trust Houses; people who read nature poetry, but who don''t hate cities; people who walk by the cliffs; people who''ve had their hearts broken, & who''ve broken someone else''s.

Richard Barnett studied medicine in London before becoming a historian, and is now a freelance writer and broadcaster. His history books include The Sick Rose: Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration (Thames & Hudson, 2014).