Welcome to my little online place. Here you will find a selection of my poetry, links to new publications and details of upcoming events.
My new poetry collection The Face in the Well is due out from Carcanet in January 2025.
My new poetry collection The Face in the Well is due out from Carcanet in January 2025.
About me
Originally from Suffolk, I am currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and freelance writer, editor and tutor based in Cambridge, UK. My poems have appeared in a range of publications, including PN Review, New Poetries VI (Carcanet), the Guardian, the Financial Times, The Spectator, the TLS and The Forward Book of Poetry 2020. My debut poetry collection, The Met Office Advises Caution, was published by Carcanet in 2016 and shortlisted for the 2017 Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Prize. In 2019 I edited Elizabeth Jennings: New Selected Poems for Carcanet and received a Hawthornden Fellowship. My second poetry collection, Red Gloves, was released in 2020 and won a Gladstone's Library Writers-in-Residence award in 2022.
Originally from Suffolk, I am currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and freelance writer, editor and tutor based in Cambridge, UK. My poems have appeared in a range of publications, including PN Review, New Poetries VI (Carcanet), the Guardian, the Financial Times, The Spectator, the TLS and The Forward Book of Poetry 2020. My debut poetry collection, The Met Office Advises Caution, was published by Carcanet in 2016 and shortlisted for the 2017 Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Prize. In 2019 I edited Elizabeth Jennings: New Selected Poems for Carcanet and received a Hawthornden Fellowship. My second poetry collection, Red Gloves, was released in 2020 and won a Gladstone's Library Writers-in-Residence award in 2022.
About my books
The Face in the Well (forthcoming - January 2025)
'With The Face in the Well, Rebecca Watts advances from being a highly promising poet to a place among the finest formalists in English. Not the formalism of nostalgia or decorum, but that of a sculptor, exquisitely dauntless, vivid and alert. When the shapes make this much sense the very breath can be heard and the spaces come alive, raising into view a trembling dream-England of old songs and books, pictures and creatures, the past and the lost tapping on the shoulders of every passing moment, forming new and unforgettable visions of our time.' – Glyn Maxwell
'She seems to have discovered a direct line to her speaking voice, while simultaneously maintaining the clear thought of a poet. This sets her apart. Not many can cope with these two competing sounds jabbering in their ear. If someone can do this you don’t really care what they write about because they’re in the room with you, speaking to you personally. “Resistance” is nowhere.' – Hugo Williams
'Watts's attention to the natural world is almost holy, ego-less. Like Alice Oswald, she can become that thing she observes, or become 'the animal in [her]' with a perspective that is some omniscient amalgam of human-and-everything-else-ness.'
– Kathryn Maris
'With The Face in the Well, Rebecca Watts advances from being a highly promising poet to a place among the finest formalists in English. Not the formalism of nostalgia or decorum, but that of a sculptor, exquisitely dauntless, vivid and alert. When the shapes make this much sense the very breath can be heard and the spaces come alive, raising into view a trembling dream-England of old songs and books, pictures and creatures, the past and the lost tapping on the shoulders of every passing moment, forming new and unforgettable visions of our time.' – Glyn Maxwell
'She seems to have discovered a direct line to her speaking voice, while simultaneously maintaining the clear thought of a poet. This sets her apart. Not many can cope with these two competing sounds jabbering in their ear. If someone can do this you don’t really care what they write about because they’re in the room with you, speaking to you personally. “Resistance” is nowhere.' – Hugo Williams
'Watts's attention to the natural world is almost holy, ego-less. Like Alice Oswald, she can become that thing she observes, or become 'the animal in [her]' with a perspective that is some omniscient amalgam of human-and-everything-else-ness.'
– Kathryn Maris
Red Gloves (2020)
Reviewed in/by the TLS, California Review of Books, Wood Bee Poet, DURA, The High Window, PN Review, Orbis and The Blue Nib.
'I love the subtle, hidden rhythms in these poems, the way words strike out and connect in ways that are understated and suggestive. The perception in the poems is at times light, witty and smart but it can also be concentrated, filled with controlled intensity, like Sibelius's symphonies. These poems insist on the complexity of things.' – Colm Tóibín
'There is something darkly unsettling at the heart of this impressive collection, a seductive, dangerous glimpse at the nature of ourselves. The poems describe a world of contingency, both fragile and beguiling. It's all we have. The poet shows us the limits of our bond with it, of our communion with the gravity of existence, of nature and friendship. You want to hold on, to embrace, and apprehend, but your grip is never strong enough, or your sense of knowing deep enough. There is always loss. The world seems forever other, beyond, out of grasp. There's heartbreak here, but also triumph, moments of epiphany that offer hope and optimism. These marvellous poems have a freshness of language and imagery that gives you goose bumps. Formally elegant and precise, Watts's lyrical voice is vividly lit, and richly evocative. Red Gloves is a deeply moving collection, profound and insightful: a true tonic for these superficial, facile times.' – Neil Rollinson
Reviewed in/by the TLS, California Review of Books, Wood Bee Poet, DURA, The High Window, PN Review, Orbis and The Blue Nib.
'I love the subtle, hidden rhythms in these poems, the way words strike out and connect in ways that are understated and suggestive. The perception in the poems is at times light, witty and smart but it can also be concentrated, filled with controlled intensity, like Sibelius's symphonies. These poems insist on the complexity of things.' – Colm Tóibín
'There is something darkly unsettling at the heart of this impressive collection, a seductive, dangerous glimpse at the nature of ourselves. The poems describe a world of contingency, both fragile and beguiling. It's all we have. The poet shows us the limits of our bond with it, of our communion with the gravity of existence, of nature and friendship. You want to hold on, to embrace, and apprehend, but your grip is never strong enough, or your sense of knowing deep enough. There is always loss. The world seems forever other, beyond, out of grasp. There's heartbreak here, but also triumph, moments of epiphany that offer hope and optimism. These marvellous poems have a freshness of language and imagery that gives you goose bumps. Formally elegant and precise, Watts's lyrical voice is vividly lit, and richly evocative. Red Gloves is a deeply moving collection, profound and insightful: a true tonic for these superficial, facile times.' – Neil Rollinson
The Met Office Advises Caution (2016)
Poetry Book Society Recommendation
Financial Times Best Books of 2016
Guardian Best Books of 2016
The Poetry School Books of the Year 2016
Shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for First Full Collection 2017
Reviewed in The London Magazine, The Manchester Review, PN Review, the Poetry School, The North, Poetry Review and the TLS.
'What a joy to find a writer so capable of creating narrative within the poetic, humour within philosophy, wildness and drama within the quotidian. Watts has a rare, perceptive eye, searching intelligence and gorgeous levity. This is a striding and far from standard debut.' – Sarah Hall
'Rebecca Watts's poems adopt strange and illuminating vantage points – the bird's-eye view of a hawk, or a Victorian lady surveying a street from a penny-farthing – to do poetry's work of telling the truth, but telling it slant.' – Emma Jones
Poetry Book Society Recommendation
Financial Times Best Books of 2016
Guardian Best Books of 2016
The Poetry School Books of the Year 2016
Shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for First Full Collection 2017
Reviewed in The London Magazine, The Manchester Review, PN Review, the Poetry School, The North, Poetry Review and the TLS.
'What a joy to find a writer so capable of creating narrative within the poetic, humour within philosophy, wildness and drama within the quotidian. Watts has a rare, perceptive eye, searching intelligence and gorgeous levity. This is a striding and far from standard debut.' – Sarah Hall
'Rebecca Watts's poems adopt strange and illuminating vantage points – the bird's-eye view of a hawk, or a Victorian lady surveying a street from a penny-farthing – to do poetry's work of telling the truth, but telling it slant.' – Emma Jones
