Whether it’s a birch tree swaying in the wind, the wild grace of a gannet in flight, or the rough beauty of a tumbledown drystone dyke, here are poems that pay attention to the everyday mysteries of the world, and remind us that home ground may also be holy ground.

 

Chris Powici lives in rural Perthshire where he writes poems and occasional essays. He edited Northwords Now from 2010–2017 and is currently co-editor of New Writing Scotland. Chris has taught creative writing for the University of Stirling and The Open University, and is one of the people behind Paperboats (paperboats. org), a group of writers campaigning for action on climate change and other ecological threats.

 

‘I do like Chris Powici’s poems. They are kind and wise, attuned to the natural world while acknowledging sorrow. In this collection his invocation of moors and birds and trees is lit with elegy. Sadness and joy are held equally and brightly.’

 

—Kathleen Jamie

 

‘Timeless and contemporary, Dint is a collection to revere. What I admire most is the trust these poems place in the world, and in the reader. They don’t rush to console or explain. Instead, they keep company—with weather, with labour, with the small, persistent facts of being alive here. There’s a deep kindness in that, I think. An authenticity. A willingness to listen, too, even when what comes back is apparent silence. It’s a book of quiet, hard-won recognitions. Both impassioned and restrained, it reminds us how much can be carried in a glance, a field, a shoreline at night. And how, if we are willing to be sincere, humble, and attentive, even the most ordinary places can open into something larger, more enduring.’

 

—Kevin MacNeil

 

‘For Powici, nature snubs neither people nor the world. His poems evoke soulful, if unknowable, landscapes. They bear witness to life’s presence and stilling amid light-plays and time’s passing. Unsentimental yet gentle, spare yet generous, precisely crafted yet unaffected, these poems invite you to linger, revisit and absorb their unpretentious, grounded wisdom amidst our global crises.’

 

—Corinne Fowler

 

‘Here are visions of the world that take us beyond words; where what is witnessed defies language and what is known cannot be spoken. Yet, like an agnostic priest of the unknown god, Powici finds the words that summon the world. Here are poems that rise like prayers, tender songs to dark Earth as much as radiant sky, to rusting machines as much as quiet trees, to old men in rough coats as much as fleeting deer. And in the singing is the sixth sense that any place could be hallowed and any creature holy.’

 

—Merryn Glover

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