The Heeding
The world changed in 2020.
Gradually at first, then quickly and irreversibly, the patterns by which we once lived altered completely. Across four seasons and a luminous series of poems and illustrations, Rob Cowen and Nick Hayes paint a picture of a year caught in the grip of history yet filled with revelatory perspectives close at hand. A sparrow hawk hunting in a back street; the moon over a town with a loved one’s hand held tight; butterflies massing in a high-summer yard – the everyday wonders and memories that shape a life and help us recall our own.
The Heeding leads us on a journey that takes its markers and signs from nature and a world filled with fear and pain but beauty and wonder too. Collecting birds, animals, trees and people together, it is a profound meditation to a time no one will forget.
At its heart, this is a book that helps us look again, to heed: to be attentive to this world we share, to grieve what’s lost and to hope for a better and brighter tomorrow.
“The light shines through this book. Poetry is a kind of breathing space and Rob Cowen has taken to it. Domestic in the best sense of the word – small scale, intimate, known – it is tender in as many senses of that word as there are. I am deeply grateful for it.” —Tim Dee, author, Landfill
“Dazzling, moving… A book that will touch many, and be given often: here, take this, you must read this.” —ROBERT MACFARLANE
“So vivid… A call out to our elemental relationship with love and nature. Beautiful.” –WILLEM DAFOE
