2026 Poetry Book Society Recommendation

At the heart of Linda Anderson’s second collection is an exploration of time and of ageing. Time is pressing, urgent, in relation to both the individual and the planet. However, underneath, there is also something unfinished, whether that be in relation to memory’s ability to revise the past and take on different shapes and meanings, or in relation to writing itself which has a materiality which links it to the body of the writer. The collection contains an interrogation of the poet’s notebooks where chance and randomness have an important part to play, forging surprising links, and directing attention to the surrounding bloom of uncertainty, the ‘diaphanous, unwritten poem’ that lurks behind any finished poem. The fragility of the body also undermines certainty, and while much of the collection draws on visual imagery, derived particularly from the natural world, the loss of sight is folded into acts of careful observation, making seeing itself both more problematic and more precious.

This collection ranges restlessly across forms and voices connecting the poems to artists, writers, and musicians such as Stanley Spencer, Frédérick Chopin and Elizabeth Bishop. Yet words also repeat across different poems, like musical motifs, forming a fragile net for the collection. There are moments too when silence takes over and we are asked to wait, to discover a different meaning in hesitancy.