Ghost Pot - Softcover

'There's a rare delicacy in John Wedgwood Clarke's poems, working as they do at edges and borders, but there's an energy too, in his formal skill and the clear-rinsed quality of his writing.' --Michael Symmons Roberts

'Ghost Pot is a complex and delightful ecosystem of a book. The poems, for all their diversity, coexist in a balance at once dangerous and beguiling. There's a richness of language that suggests we're in the hands not only of a masterful poet but of an erudite marine biologist. Many of Ghost Pot's poems are specifically located on and off the coast of Yorkshire; all of them find a true home in the human heart.' --Antony Dunn

'...the findings of an intently observing eye, expressed through an exceptional lyrical technique. Whether the subject is sea-life, shoreline or history, these beautifully crafted poems tease out the essential meaning in things and places. Ghost Pot is a masterpiece that rewards continual rereading.' --Bernard O'Donoghue

John Wedgwood Clarke's first full-length collection begins with the mesmerizing and disturbing image of the 'Ghost Pot' - a lobster creel that, torn free from its mooring, drifts along the sea-bed, continuing to catch lobsters until it is rediscovered, 'crammed to the throat with bony shields'.

Returning to the coastline vividly described in his debut pamphlet Sea Swim, these new poems add depth and variation to a body of work fast-becoming the definitive literary take on the seafront vistas of North Yorkshire. Bays, cliffs, frets and a 'Brigg' are populated by deftly-portrayed sea creatures, half-glimpsed residents with 'voices the moon defines', their 'yellow winter pub-talk clacking down wet steps', and landmarks, including the rusting industrial relics of the iron-ore industry on which Clarke observes the 'irreversible flowerings of a bolt'.

'Ghost Pot' is a powerful, cohesive sequence which marks the arrival of a significant and original new voice in UK poetry.