Watering Can

Description

Caroline Bird's two earlier collections were acclaimed for their exuberant energy, surreal imagination and passion - 'a bit of a Howl for a new generation', wrote the "Hudson Review". "Watering Can" celebrates life as an early twenty-something. The poems, writes Caroline Bird, 'contain prophetic videos, a moon colonised by bullies, weeping scholars, laughing ducks, silent weddings - all the fertiliser that pours on top of your head.' The extraordinary verve and compassion of her verse propels us into the anxiety of new responsibilities. Raw but never hopeless, "Watering Can" has comedy, wordplay and bright self-deprecation.

Caroline Bird, who was born in 1986, was a winner of the Simon Elvin Young Poets of the Year Award in 1999 and 2000, and the Peterloo Poets Competition for Young Poets in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Her first collection, Looking Through Letterboxes, was published by Carcanet in 2002; her second collection, Trouble Came to the Turnip, appeared in 2006. She was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer prize in 2001 and won a major Eric Gregory Award in 2002. Caroline Bird was a member of the Royal Court Young Writers programme and has written a number of plays, some of which have been broadcast on BBC radio. She is currently studying English at Oxford University.

What an original captivating and spellbinding voice. Bird is fearless like 'the girl who dropped her ice-cream down a volcano and leaped in after it'. She's dangerous and witty too with a rare quality of imagination. This is a wonder, a beautifully written book of poems. - Lemn Sissay