Zoë Skoulding Books

The French Republican Calendar, established to secularize time and empower rural workers, serves as the foundation for the poems in A Revolutionary Calendar. Each month was renamed to reflect the seasons, and days honored plants, animals, minerals, or tools instead of saints. The poet Fabre d'Églantine's innovative naming inspires a rich exploration of etymology, translation, and sensory memory, highlighting connections and solidarities among humans, objects, and other species.

In Footnotes to Water, poet Zoë Skoulding follows two forgotten rivers, the Adda in Bangor and the Bièvre in Paris, and tracks the literary hoofprints of sheep through Welsh mountains. In these journeys she reveals urban and rural locales as sites of lively interconnection, exploring the ways in which place shapes and is shaped by language.

Drawing inspiration from a visit to Murano, the collection uses the art of glassmaking as a metaphor for exploring identity and history. The poems delve into the life of the poet's grandfather, reflecting on his experiences in the British Royal Air Force across India, China, and Iraq. Themes of travel, personal expectations, and resistance to authority are prevalent, as the poet uncovers unique stories and perspectives from diverse cultures and landscapes.

A unique collaboration from some of Europe’s most exciting contemporary female voices, this work is the result of writing and walking in different cities across Europe in response to the questions What does writing poetry have in common with walking in the city? In translating poetry, what lost paths, dark alleys, and chance connections are encountered? and How are the maps by which cities are known allow for new poetry to be discovered? Each of these lyrical pieces, which deftly explain the relationships between place and language, provide new and refreshing ways for readers to see European cities.

Exploring the imagined city, this vibrant poetry collection intertwines the natural world with urban landscapes, from cathedrals to construction sites, suggesting a vision of utopia shadowed by ruins. It reflects on the shared fractures of Europe's history and the interconnectedness of the 21st century, presenting new relationships that emerge through these themes. The poems are shaped by the perspective of a city wanderer, constantly reinventing poetic form as they navigate the diverse quarters of urban life.

Zoe Skoulding's first Carcanet collection is a navigation of lostness, centred on Anglesey, that discovers solidarities across times, places and species.