“Written around the time of my mother’s death, these poems take the day’s weather as a starting-point before spinning off in their own directions. They express the effects of weather on my mood and imagination and a desire to reconnect with the animal self - several are about small creatures, mostly real, some imaginary. The only person, apart from the speaker, that appears in these poems is the figure of my mother. Her absence, echoing her absence in my childhood, seems now, as then, to have intensified my relationship with the natural world - the huge presences of sky, stars, sun, moon, and the smaller presences of flora and fauna. By way of elegising my mother’s death, I celebrate these living companions. Although they have a sad undertow, I hope the poems are light and playful without denying the dark and dangers in the wider world.” - Mimi Khalvati, 2013
Mimi Khalvati has published seven collections with Carcanet Press, including The Meanest Flower (2007), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her most recent collection, Child: New and Selected Poems 1991-2011 is a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Mimi is the founder of The Poetry School, where she teaches, and co-editor of three anthologies of new writing from The Poetry School published by Enitharmon Press. Her awards include a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors, a major Arts Council Award and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.