cknowledgements Thanks to the editors of the following publications, where some of these poems were originally published: The Abandoned Playground; Anthropocene; Bad Lilies; Bath Magg; Finished Creatures; M58; Magma; Poetry Review; Poetry Wales; Shearsman. ‘Amber’ was commended in the Newcastle Poetry Competition 2019. A version of ‘Seasons of the Hospital’ was longlisted in the Artlyst Art to Poetry Competition 2020. ‘Sudley Field’ was commissioned by Almanac Arts for the Liverpool RISE Festival in 2019, and was originally produced as a limited edition of 30 handmade booklets, designed in collaboration with Sarah Hymas (https://almanacarts.com/). ‘Nightfall, Parys Mountain’ was published as part of Manchester Metropolitan University’s ‘Write Where We Are Now’ project in 2020 (https://www.mmu.ac.uk/write/). The Nova Scotia poems were written during a two-week residency (with sound artist Martin Heslop) at the Elizabeth Bishop House, Great Village, Nova Scotia, in September 2019; I am grateful to the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia, especially Laurie Gunn, and to Liverpool John Moores University for financial support. I am grateful to everyone at Carcanet Press, and to everyone who has generously discussed aspects of this book with me: Tara Bergin, Lucy Burnett, Cathy Cole, Rebecca Goss, 107