The poems in The Beholder capture those fleeting moments between people and the world around them, distilling them without judgement or resolution. A deer trapped in someone’s garden makes a dangerous leap for freedom; someone hangs onto a sense of beauty in the face of an ugly and collapsing life.
Kate Behrens speaks from a new Europe, a place that feels more and more unfamiliar – looking out from city flats, from a train window out to the burning horizon, from the viewpoint of victims of trauma. But there is celebration here, too – in the ways children can heal and inspire, and in nature’s capacity to nourish and regenerate.
“A keen sense of observation and a quiet precision are her trademarks.”
Brian Patten
Kate Behrens was born in 1959, one of twin daughters to two painters. She was a runner up in the 2010 Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition. She lives in Oxfordshire, and reads regularly at the Poets Café in Reading. This is her first collection.