The Remedies

The Remedies is Katharine Towers’ eagerly awaited second collection and follows the highly acclaimed The Floating Man.If you have read neither I would say that this is a poet who has a particularly distinctive voice- it is hers and cannot easily be mistaken for that of another poet. There are writers who explore adjacent liminal territories (Esther Morgan in her own way perhaps) but this is essentially a singular and individual territory. And that is really the thing I am left with. I think a reader can say: one would know “a Katharine Towers poem” intuitively.In The Floating Man, her previous collection, one poem that still resonates for me is The Way We Go which I see as a kind of touchstone. The poem is quietly shocking. It is perhaps concerned with some form of transcendence from the commonplace towards the extraordinary. It is interested in how a nature can suddenly call us or bring us out of ourselves. Or to a quiet, still place within ourselves.It might be a good place to begin before you read The Remedies.This new book starts with the The Roses:Because my father will not stand again/beneath these swags of Himalayan Musk….It is a beautiful poem of loss which culminates in the fairy tale image:…I have it in my mind/to let the roses pull our house down slowly/for a hundred years. Then I’ll come back…The spare, beauty of Porcelain:clay rears upwavering towards its shape…culminates in one of those whole collection moments where one doesn’t want to rush on to the next poem but would rather put the book down in a kind of reverence for the final image in which the state of wavering is compared to “the new born fawn/swaying at its mother’s flank/uncertain and certain”.Observation of nature brings the poet to make links to our human state as in the wonderful poem The Chaffinch which observes that no-one has told this creature that “he always sounds the same” as his repetitive sounding of each moment can never “rise to art”. It is the apparent truth, though, that for him “there is no death” that astounded me.The collection is structured in three distinct parts with the middle section being a group of short poems which are each spoken in the distinct voice of a flower. The created persona voice speaks of its sufferings/ ailments for which the flower may be a human remedy. So Wild Balsam (a remedy for impatience) creates a voice that convincingly creates that very affliction:I want to think and work.I want to make of my hamstrung lifea brilliant feverAgrimony (a remedy for mental torture that is kept hidden) is “troubled”:If I could choose I’d beara single dark blue flower–heavy as stone, and bitter scented.Several other pieces continue to resonate long after the book has been put down. There is the poem Rain which dispenses with conventional lineation to bring us with the poet by way of the natural world into that place in the dark of the heart..where there’s nothing…Often we are included, invited even to be in this world. The pronouns us/ we recur as if to remind us of what we sensed anyway- that this stuff matters and that it is about being “exactly human” when confronted with the reality that “none of this is about us” (Murmuration).And it isn’t really. The jolt of the newness of a language straining to move beyond our lives is acute in the astonishing At the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum. A series of intelligent, polite and unanswered questions gradually disarms the reader so that the ending has in own answer in the silence that follows:Do you feel sorrow when you hear these words: atom; void ?A beautiful poem, The Window, begins the final section. In the assured structural way it creates the ache of loss without sentimentality it is perhaps reminiscent of Carole Ann Duffy’s own poem, Water from The Bees (both poems succeed not only in defining something difficult but more than that- they make us feel it exactly).And finally at the end we are left to the bluebells. We are invited to feel this essence that .though latent, is there. We only need to grow into that place. Katharine Towers wonderful second collection lets us know that place is there, here:They are entering their domainand the light is startling to them.They quietly jostle to get more of it.It may be that they are concentratingon making the blue they rememberor perhaps it will astound them.. BluebellsThe Remedies is Katharine Towers’ eagerly awaited second collection and follows the highly acclaimed The Floating Man.If you have read neither I would say that this is a poet who has a particularly distinctive voice- it is hers and cannot easily be mistaken for that of another poet. There are writers who explore adjacent liminal territories (Esther Morgan in her own way perhaps) but this is essentially a singular and individual territory. And that is really the thing I am left with. I think a reader can say: one would know “a Katharine Towers poem” intuitively.In The Floating Man, her previous collection, one poem that still resonates for me is The Way We Go which I see as a kind of touchstone. The poem is quietly shocking. It is perhaps concerned with some form of transcendence from the commonplace towards the extraordinary. It is interested in how a nature can suddenly call us or bring us out of ourselves. Or to a quiet, still place within ourselves.It might be a good place to begin before you read The Remedies.This new book starts with the The Roses:Because my father will not stand again/beneath these swags of Himalayan Musk….It is a beautiful poem of loss which culminates in the fairy tale image:…I have it in my mind/to let the roses pull our house down slowly/for a hundred years. Then I’ll come back…The spare, beauty of Porcelain:clay rears upwavering towards its shape…culminates in one of those whole collection moments where one doesn’t want to rush on to the next poem but would rather put the book down in a kind of reverence for the final image in which the state of wavering is compared to “the new born fawn/swaying at its mother’s flank/uncertain and certain”.Observation of nature brings the poet to make links to our human state as in the wonderful poem The Chaffinch which observes that no-one has told this creature that “he always sounds the same” as his repetitive sounding of each moment can never “rise to art”. It is the apparent truth, though, that for him “there is no death” that astounded me.The collection is structured in three distinct parts with the middle section being a group of short poems which are each spoken in the distinct voice of a flower. The created persona voice speaks of its sufferings/ ailments for which the flower may be a human remedy. So Wild Balsam (a remedy for impatience) creates a voice that convincingly creates that very affliction:I want to think and work.I want to make of my hamstrung lifea brilliant feverAgrimony (a remedy for mental torture that is kept hidden) is “troubled”:If I could choose I’d beara single dark blue flower–heavy as stone, and bitter scented.Several other pieces continue to resonate long after the book has been put down. There is the poem Rain which dispenses with conventional lineation to bring us with the poet by way of the natural world into that place in the dark of the heart..where there’s nothing…Often we are included, invited even to be in this world. The pronouns us/ we recur as if to remind us of what we sensed anyway- that this stuff matters and that it is about being “exactly human” when confronted with the reality that “none of this is about us” (Murmuration).And it isn’t really. The jolt of the newness of a language straining to move beyond our lives is acute in the astonishing At the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum. A series of intelligent, polite and unanswered questions gradually disarms the reader so that the ending has in own answer in the silence that follows:Do you feel sorrow when you hear these words: atom; void ?A beautiful poem, The Window, begins the final section. In the assured structural way it creates the ache of loss without sentimentality it is perhaps reminiscent of Carole Ann Duffy’s own poem, Water from The Bees (both poems succeed not only in defining something difficult but more than that- they make us feel it exactly).And finally at the end we are left to the bluebells. We are invited to feel this essence that .though latent, is there. We only need to grow into that place. Katharine Towers wonderful second collection lets us know that place is there, here:They are entering their domainand the light is startling to them.They quietly jostle to get more of it.It may be that they are concentratingon making the blue they rememberor perhaps it will astound them.. BluebellsThe Remedies is Katharine Towers’ eagerly awaited second collection and follows the highly acclaimed The Floating Man.If you have read neither I would say that this is a poet who has a particularly distinctive voice- it is hers and cannot easily be mistaken for that of another poet. There are writers who explore adjacent liminal territories (Esther Morgan in her own way perhaps) but this is essentially a singular and individual territory. And that is really the thing I am left with. I think a reader can say: one would know “a Katharine Towers poem” intuitively.In The Floating Man, her previous collection, one poem that still resonates for me is The Way We Go which I see as a kind of touchstone. The poem is quietly shocking. It is perhaps concerned with some form of transcendence from the commonplace towards the extraordinary. It is interested in how a nature can suddenly call us or bring us out of ourselves. Or to a quiet, still place within ourselves.It might be a good place to begin before you read The Remedies.This new book starts with the The Roses:Because my father will not stand again/beneath these swags of Himalayan Musk….It is a beautiful poem of loss which culminates in the fairy tale image:…I have it in my mind/to let the roses pull our house down slowly/for a hundred years. Then I’ll come back…The spare, beauty of Porcelain:clay rears upwavering towards its shape…culminates in one of those whole collection moments where one doesn’t want to rush on to the next poem but would rather put the book down in a kind of reverence for the final image in which the state of wavering is compared to “the new born fawn/swaying at its mother’s flank/uncertain and certain”.Observation of nature brings the poet to make links to our human state as in the wonderful poem The Chaffinch which observes that no-one has told this creature that “he always sounds the same” as his repetitive sounding of each moment can never “rise to art”. It is the apparent truth, though, that for him “there is no death” that astounded me.The collection is structured in three distinct parts with the middle section being a group of short poems which are each spoken in the distinct voice of a flower. The created persona voice speaks of its sufferings/ ailments for which the flower may be a human remedy. So Wild Balsam (a remedy for impatience) creates a voice that convincingly creates that very affliction:I want to think and work.I want to make of my hamstrung lifea brilliant feverAgrimony (a remedy for mental torture that is kept hidden) is “troubled”:If I could choose I’d beara single dark blue flower–heavy as stone, and bitter scented.Several other pieces continue to resonate long after the book has been put down. There is the poem Rain which dispenses with conventional lineation to bring us with the poet by way of the natural world into that place in the dark of the heart..where there’s nothing…Often we are included, invited even to be in this world. The pronouns us/ we recur as if to remind us of what we sensed anyway- that this stuff matters and that it is about being “exactly human” when confronted with the reality that “none of this is about us” (Murmuration).And it isn’t really. The jolt of the newness of a language straining to move beyond our lives is acute in the astonishing At the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum. A series of intelligent, polite and unanswered questions gradually disarms the reader so that the ending has in own answer in the silence that follows:Do you feel sorrow when you hear these words: atom; void ?A beautiful poem, The Window, begins the final section. In the assured structural way it creates the ache of loss without sentimentality it is perhaps reminiscent of Carole Ann Duffy’s own poem, Water from The Bees (both poems succeed not only in defining something difficult but more than that- they make us feel it exactly).And finally at the end we are left to the bluebells. We are invited to feel this essence that .though latent, is there. We only need to grow into that place. Katharine Towers wonderful second collection lets us know that place is there, here:They are entering their domainand the light is startling to them.They quietly jostle to get more of it.It may be that they are concentratingon making the blue they rememberor perhaps it will astound them.. Bluebells

Such an engaging modern poet. She proves that short poems can be as skillful as miniature paintings.

Delighted - delivered well before the expected date, and in excellent condition. Wonderful book

Loving this book, beautiful, rare and visionary. I read a poem each night before going to sleep . . . Thank you

all v ok

A rare talent. As in all gifted work, each reading brings new ideas each time.

Scintillating, luminous, poignant

Very much enjoyed these poems. Some will haunt me for a long while. I did find the Remedies series of poems a tiny bit weaker than the rest of the collection; they seemed a little contrived, even though it was the concept of them that drew me to the book. It's the strength of the rest of the poems that highlights this; had the whole book been Remedies (there are more to work from if you look at the 38 Bach remedies) I'd probably not have noticed.It's a lovely collection though, wistful and powerful in turns.