W.H. Davies (1871–1940) was popularly though reductively known as the ‘tramp-poet’ due to his remarkable journey from vagrancy, in Britain and the United States, to considerable literary success. ‘Discovered’ in part by Edward Thomas, who admired his poetry, Davies became a prolific memoirist and occasional writer of fiction, criticism and drama. He is now known almost exclusively for a handful of poems and for his memoir The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp; his other writing has long been out of print. This book collects generous selections from Davies’s prose memoir, poetry, and critical prose, alongside comprehensive notes. It brings back into print the work of a remarkable, controversial and unduly neglected author.
W.H. Davies was popularly though reductively known as the ‘tramp-poet’ due to his remarkable journey from vagrancy, in Britain and the United States, to considerable literary success. ‘Discovered’ in part by Edward Thomas, who admired his poetry, Davies became a prolific memoirist and occasional writer of fiction, criticism and drama. He is now known almost exclusively for a handful of poems and for his memoir
The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp; his other writing has long been out of print.
Rory Waterman was born in Belfast in 1981, grew up mainly in Lincolnshire, and lives in Nottingham. His previous full-length collections, all published by Carcanet, are: Tonight the Summer’s Over (2013), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for a Seamus Heaney Award; Sarajevo Roses (2017), which was shortlisted for the Ledbury Forte Prize for Second Collections; Sweet Nothings (2020) and and Come Here to This Gate (2024), described in the Guardian as ‘a wise and deeply satisfying book’.. He is also a press critic, and has published several books on modern and contemporary poetry. He is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at Nottingham Trent University. Author photo by Thomas Curtis.