Return by Minor Road

Born in Norfolk in 1971, Heidi Williamson has lived in Stirling, Brussels and Salisbury. She now lives in Wymondham, Norfolk. In 2008-09 she was poet-in-residence at the London Science Museum’s Dana Centre. She was writer-in-residence at the John Jarrold Printing Museum in Norwich in 2011-14. In 2008 she received an Arts Council award to complete her first collection, Electric Shadow (Bloodaxe Books, 2011), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, which was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize. Her second collection, The Print Museum (Bloodaxe Books, 2016), won the poetry category of the 2016 East Anglian Book Awards. Her third collection, Return by Minor Road, was published by Bloodaxe in 2020. Her work has been used to inspire poetry and science discussions in schools and adult creative writing groups, and has featured in NHS waiting rooms, cafés, and at festivals. For more information, see her website.

Through poems of meticulous clarity and precision, Williamson charts the lives and landscapes of a tragedy and its aftermath. These are poems which honestly and respectfully explore the two worlds of humanity: the world we inhabit, its towns, fields and rivers; and, equally importantly, the emotional and spiritual context - the world which inhabits us. What binds the two together? In this powerful and moving collection, it is surely love.

• I What the river leaves behind12 The wall13 In a schoolroom, the woodcutter14 Thrawn16 Cormorant17 Weir 18 Loch Occasional20 What the river leaves behind 21 It’s twenty-two years ago and it’s today22 Bracklinn Falls23 Watching the past in the waters of Loch Earn24 The rain in the night25 Fugitive dust26 Lepus timidus27 Tharn 28 Hare II Cold spring30 From31 Scottish spring32 Monochrome33 Cold spring I37 Calls38 After39 Describe40 Flowers41 And42 Dumyat43 Balquhidder44 Aubade45 Sheriffmuir 46 Cold spring II49 Elegy50 Snowdrop III The wild rain52 When we were stone53 Culvert54 With a rootless lily held in front of him56 Tonight my heart is open so hard it could shatter57 Every day58 Allan Water bridge60 Facing north61 Disappearance at six o’clock62 Return by minor road63 Dunblane64 The weight of news66 Historical markers67 Wet morning in the cathedral square68 A language learned abroad69 The trees of the Trossachs 70 Self72 Smoke73 Dust, at intervals74 The wild rain75 Winter river76 Place 79 Acknowledgements