Dwell

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This gorgeously illustrated collection of poems illuminates and reimagines the ingenious, fragile dwellings of the living creatures around us. Poet Laureate Simon Armitage was inspired to write these poems by the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, an ambitious restoration project where history and mystery combine. The reawakened landscape with its woods, meadows and ‘jungle’ offers a bustling, fertile realm for all sorts of creatures to inhabit.

Armitage uses elements of riddle and folklore to animate a series of dwellings: the ‘twig-and-leaf crow’s-nest squat’ of a squirrel’s drey, a beaver lodge’s ‘spillikin stave church’ and a hive’s ‘reactor core’. Distinctions between human and animal, natural and cultivated, are blurred, emphasising commonality and creating a vibrant account of ‘non-stop stop-motion life’. Dwell warns of the fragility of these spaces and their dwellers, exposed to relentless and sadly familiar environmental threats.

Just as a garden provides refuge for wildlife, so do these intricate poems offer lasting homes to those who dwell within their lines. This edition is beautifully illustrated by Beth Munro.