The Singing and Dancing

Surprisingly, though writing poems of great humanity, fluency and elegance, Ann Atkinson never tried to publish a full collection. Many poets who knew her felt she should, but Ann was always too busy, too giving, too modest, perhaps even fearful of committing to the value of her own work. At last, this book remedies that. Ann died in 2012, but in these pages we breathe again her lightness and grace, her musicality, the way her dancing line - like that of the fisherman's on the Derwent, the tightrope walker's wire, her chalkings in the childhood yard - involves a sense of seemingly effortless balance and harmony.