Uphill to the Sea

Gordon Simms' poetry has appeared in Envoi, The Interpreter's House, Other Poetry and The New Writer. He has won several competitions and an Arvon prize, and was a finalist in Aesthetica Creative Works Annual 2011. He is thrilled to have won the Biscuit Poetry Challenge 2011 and to have this prizewinner's collection published.

He runs Segora writing competitions and is organising the first bilingual Litfest in Deux-Sèvres this year. (More information at www.poetryproseandplays.co.uk.) Uphill to the Sea is a collection in five parts.

"With consummate craftsmanship Gordon Simms continues a long line of rural poets by creating here poems of great sensitivity, physicality and muscle, evoking a contemporary rural England and its people. They are unsparing in their perceptions but always express an unsentimental affection."

Christopher North on 'What's in the Bones'

"Searching for what is constant, Gordon Simms' poems - crafted, accessible, moving and thought-provoking - explore varieties of people and places caught at moments of conflict, crisis and illumination. The poems excite and delight in turns."

Roger Elkin on 'Why There are Tunnels'

"Here are poems that are lyrical, highly visual and that dance off the page with delightful immediacy. Gordon Simms explores relationships and events with an eye to paradoxes and ironies - an authentic touch."

Katherine Gallagher on 'In Flight'

"' I will sing to my children / until, one by one, they enter the night like stars': female voices evoked by pagan moons span love, loss and survival."

Pippa Little on 'Searching for Signs'

"Roller-coaster language leaps off the page in poems which span cultural boundaries from the perspective of diverse female voices - a gift for readers and performers alike. Mood and emotion are heightened by unexpected phrasing. The muscular impact of rhythm and sound alerts the imagination like a ticking bomb."

Wendy Wright on 'Searching for Signs'

"Ferried from one arena to another our sensations merge as light and sound hover over the island and its human history. The reflective gentleness of these poems illuminates Islay's transitory nature and beauty."

Owen Lowery on 'Sounds of Islay'

"I have read 'Sounds of Islay' with delight. I can smell the island and taste it; experience too, that strange pleasure of such a haven... 'Sung vastness, luminous distance' - the endless possibilities beyond the horizons of our lives."

Julia Casterton on 'Sounds of Islay'

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