'Polar Corona', my prize-winning poetry pamphlet on Antarctica

 

I am excited to say that I have just received advance copies of Polar Corona, my prize-winning 'crown-of-sonnets' poetry pamphlet, published by the Hedgehog Poetry Press.  

 

For further details: click here. 

 

From the blurbs:

“In Polar Corona, Caroline Gill offers a vivid and precise depiction of Antarctica’s landscape and wildlife, especially the seasonal rhythms of penguins’ lives, interwoven with a poignant exploration of human fortitude in this most testing of environments. Her marvellous ear for the music of a poem is evident throughout and the intricate pattern of mostly half rhymes cleverly accentuates the pervading sense of risk and unpredictability." 

 – Susan Richardson, Author of Where the Seals Sing (William Collins, 2022) and Words the Turtle Taught Me (Cinnamon Press, 2018), shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award 

“Caroline Gill has produced a beautifully crafted cycle of poems, in which the final line of each one is taken up by the next until the final poem brings us back to where we began, in a perfect round. These poems bring the Antarctic to life, a vast world of ice and snow, a world of astonishing loveliness, illuminated by the stars, and at the same time a world in which human beings and creatures such as penguins live out a perilous existence."

– Professor J. R. Watson, University of Durham 

  

“When we introduce people to objects, artworks and archives in our polar collections, they are transported to a time and place far removed from our museum in Cambridge. In Caroline Gill’s evocative Polar Corona, she closes the distance and brings the ‘heroic age’ of polar exploration to life. Her words open a window in our imaginations directly onto Antarctica’s remote sights and sounds.”

– Dr Charlotte Connelly, Former Museum Curator, The Polar Museum, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge

 

'Polar Corona' ... today is 'Cover Reveal Day'

 

My super-slim prize-winning poetry pamphlet, Polar Corona, has nearly reached publication. It's almost 'touch down' time for the penguin. You can read a bit more by clicking here. And meanwhile, I hope you like the cover. 

Scott Polar Research Institute (Cambridge) and The Poetry School online eBook

Some of the poems we wrote earlier this year during the collaborative project between the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, and The Poetry School, are now online. They can be found on The Poetry School Campus site in an eBook entitled Sharpened into Absence, produced by Julia Bird of The Poetry School.

Thank you, Julia, for your hard work in preparing the publication.

Thank you to all who made this unique course not only possible but enjoyable, riveting, challenging and more besides.

I read my two poems, 'Chattermarks' and 'Pepys Island', yesterday evening at our local Poetry Cafe ...


Postscript
Julia adds a word about viewing the eBook online ...

'To view the book full screen, click the four arrow icon at the right of the grey toolbar at the bottom, and then you can make the print bigger or smaller by moving the slider between the ‘-‘ and ‘+’ magnifying glass icons.'

Poetry at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge

I can hardly believe that my 'three-month museum residency' as part of a group at the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) in Cambridge, via The Poetry School, is into its final month. It has been an unbelievable experience so far, with input sessions from poets and SPRI researchers alike.

We have studied and handled artefacts. We have looked at documents and charts. We have spent time in the museum and we have flexed our poetry muscles in unexpected ways. It has been exciting to learn a different vocabulary and to meet new people.  

three-month museum residency√

three-month museum residency

three-month museum residency

three-month museum residency

three-month museum residency√

three-month museum residency

Cambridge from the Backs

Back in the 1990s I worked for five terrific years in one of the Cambridge University archives, and I have been aware of a certain sense of 'return'. It is often the case, however, that one fails to appreciate one's surroundings and local resources to the full until it is time to move on!

'Behind the Scenes at the Scott Polar Research Institute' developed out of the Cambridge 'Threshold' residencies that took place in a number of university museums and institutions in 2013. The project was showcased at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas last autumn, and I was very inspired by what I heard at the event.