Knock Wood: A book of attention

It’s publication day for my new book, Knock Wood.

For the last few years, I’ve been walking the same three-mile circuit of woods and fields near my home. I take a notebook with me and write whatever seems to ask for attention – the way the light falls through the trees, the absence of cows in a familiar field, thoughts about my dad’s declining health. Often it’s simply whatever question happens to arise before disappearing again. Those small pieces have gradually become this book.

Knock Wood – subtitled a book of attention – isn’t a guide to mindfulness or a collection of nature writing. It’s simply a record of one person trying to pay attention to the life already in front of him – with as much honesty, curiosity and quiet humour as he can manage. The watercolours scattered through the book were made in the same spirit.

If you’ve ever longed to slow down a little, to notice more, or to find meaning in the ordinary, I hope it might be good company.

The book is being published by Hundred House Press, an independent poetry publisher based in the south east of the England. The press is a collective of writers and makers – including me and Dark Angel Tim Rich – who create work grounded in a spirit of connection. It’s the perfect home for my book and I’m honoured that Knock Wood is its first publication.

You can buy a copy here.

Here are a few comments from people who have read the book:

*

“The sense it left me with was of a particular type of intimacy and tenderness. I felt that I was being invited along on the walks, and that I was witnessing something real happening.”

*

“I found it absolutely mesmerising, very beautiful and quite hypnotic. It’s the kind of thing that has the power to go in deep, to shift something within one.”

*

“It feels like a kind of talisman, a mantra, and a meditation on aging, letting go, clearing out, being still, paying attention, being in nature.”