Tonight the Summer's Over

Waterman Rory

The poems in Rory Waterman's debut collection "Tonight the Summer's Over" explore belonging and estrangement with precise resonance. Born in Belfast and brought up in rural Lincolnshire, Waterman turns an unblurred eye on his own childhood, caught between two countries, two cultures, two parents. Yet his poems are never mere autobiography: they are rooted in a broader concern for the inconsistencies of human experience. "Tonight the Summer's Over" becomes a book of love and hope: "Lift the purest feather from the wreck. / Ignore the seagulls laughing against the sky".

About the Author

Rory Waterman was born in Belfast and grew up mostly in rural Lincolnshire. He was a Hawthornden Fellow in 2012. His poems have appeared in the "TLS", "New Poetries V" (Carcanet, 2011), "Poetry Review", "The Best British Poetry 2012" (Salt, 2012), "Stand", "Agenda", "PN Review" and various other publications, and he co-edits New Walk arts magazine. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Nottingham Trent University. "Tonight the Summer's Over", his first collection, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Reviews

"Rory Waterman writes poems of the kind there'll always be a need for – poems that require skill to make but don't insist on it, that combine keen-eyed observation and immediately graspable shades of feeling in a memorable way. Waterman's is a very appealing voice, laconic, unillusioned and vulnerable. His world is a recognisable and convincing one, his rueful, sometimes harsh sincerity is palpable, and he deserves to be read by anyone to whom these things still matter" – Alan Jenkins

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