The Face in the Well

In her vibrant third collection, Rebecca Watts shines a light on the tender, spontaneous, creative and creaturely aspects of the self, and asks how we might nurture and shield these from the many physical, psychological and social forces predisposed to keep them down. Wearing a variety of costumes, or none at all, the characters in these dramatic poems play hide-and-seek, guarding their vulnerabilities while yearning for greater connection with others and the world. Animals, as totems and spirit guides, swim, run and fly across the pages. Children tiptoe and improvise their way through landscapes designed to curtail and bewilder them. Adults curate their own funerals, befriend spiders, try to love each other, and go to war. Poets and other heroes – Brontë, Heaney, Plath, Yeats, Mary Poppins – are confronted, reflected, refracted and left echoing anew.