bethstorey's review
4.0
The Heeding is a beautiful collaboration between writer Rob Cowen, author of Common Ground and writer and illustrator Nick Hayes, author of The Book of Trespass. Their styles of writing and illustrating meld beautifully together in this volume of poetry. The book reflects on the Covid 19 pandemic and how it has shaped all our lives in strange and unusual ways. Some of the poems are focused on the strange act of shutting ourselves away from one another and the challenges that domestic life is faced with in our new pandemic inhabited world. Other poems are broader and encompass the vast delight of spending time out of doors. There is nature writing, natural history and current affairs woven in with the beautiful language of these poems.
Accompanying these poems are swirling woodcut illustrations by Hayes that strikingly illustrate the book. Starlings tumble across the page, a hawk tears through the binding, a pharmacy window is illuminated from within while snow falls outside. The interplay between our unusual daily lives over the past year and the solace found in the natural world are wonderfully examined in this book and the collaboration with words and images is so successful that I hope there will be more to come from these two artists working together. Though hopefully under more pleasant circumstances.
I would recommend this book to readers of pretty much any age and particularly to any reader that wanted to reflect on this strange time that we find ourselves living through, with the natural world being the central focus and form of succour. The book is a lovely slim volume and would be a perfect companion on a walk through woodland or on a wander to hear birdsong outside. Slipped into a coat pocket it will be a perfect companion to spending time outside. The book is fittingly published to coincide with the June 2021 summer solstice to mark the end of the first lockdown. Perfect timing in my opinion as the book is a slice of solace in troubled times.
Accompanying these poems are swirling woodcut illustrations by Hayes that strikingly illustrate the book. Starlings tumble across the page, a hawk tears through the binding, a pharmacy window is illuminated from within while snow falls outside. The interplay between our unusual daily lives over the past year and the solace found in the natural world are wonderfully examined in this book and the collaboration with words and images is so successful that I hope there will be more to come from these two artists working together. Though hopefully under more pleasant circumstances.
I would recommend this book to readers of pretty much any age and particularly to any reader that wanted to reflect on this strange time that we find ourselves living through, with the natural world being the central focus and form of succour. The book is a lovely slim volume and would be a perfect companion on a walk through woodland or on a wander to hear birdsong outside. Slipped into a coat pocket it will be a perfect companion to spending time outside. The book is fittingly published to coincide with the June 2021 summer solstice to mark the end of the first lockdown. Perfect timing in my opinion as the book is a slice of solace in troubled times.
nicktomjoe's review
5.0
Common Ground was such a tour de force that I hesitated getting The Heeding. I need not have hesitated: both NIck Hayes’ artwork and Rob Cowen’s poetry are sensitive and well crafted- and work exceptionally well together. Both contribute to the theme which starts with the message at the start: pay heed; read the signs of the times. And just in case you need me to underline it, the times are the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Watch with care the spider as she exhibits “the patience of 300 million years;” recognise the allotment sheds at sunset and know how ephemeral our tenancy is of an allotment - or of life itself. There are beautiful, painful insights, rage against misinformation, relief at a blue tit’s escape in flight… The cliché is “all human life is here,” but this collection is rooted in particular experience, the hawk on the motorway “Map-reader from a chick,” the old woman at the pharmacy, “coddling the staff” in the painful loneliness of lockdown. Poems and images sit in a particular place but have a timeless quality. This is a book to treasure.
Watch with care the spider as she exhibits “the patience of 300 million years;” recognise the allotment sheds at sunset and know how ephemeral our tenancy is of an allotment - or of life itself. There are beautiful, painful insights, rage against misinformation, relief at a blue tit’s escape in flight… The cliché is “all human life is here,” but this collection is rooted in particular experience, the hawk on the motorway “Map-reader from a chick,” the old woman at the pharmacy, “coddling the staff” in the painful loneliness of lockdown. Poems and images sit in a particular place but have a timeless quality. This is a book to treasure.
amy_in_wonderland's review
5.0
Beautiful collection of poems and illustrations, that act as a cathartic exhalation to the year we all lost.
oceanxbluess's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
5.0
I’ve never really been one for poetry, nor have I ever really given it a proper chance. Probably because of the amount of ‘war and conflict’ poems I had to study & memorise for my English GCSE exam.
I was a bit sceptical to reach for The Heeding at first, but I’m so glad I did. I was pleasantly surprised by this book and it completely hooked me from the first page.
Rob Cowen has created a wonderful anthology of poems which I think anyone will love - even if you think you’re not into poetry like me. A perfect blend of nature, family and community in the challenging times of the pandemic.
I finished it in one sitting, I couldn’t get enough. I found myself reading them aloud, whispering them to myself, and I know that I will return to the beautiful pages of this book time and time again.
So much has happened over these past 2 years, and I doubt I’m alone in that I haven’t really given myself the chance to sit and think about how much we’ve all been through. I think that we are always ‘encouraged’ to move on and forget about things quicker than we can recover and reflect on them - and I feel like now c*vid has become one of those things.
The Heeding gave me that time to sit and reflect and actually think about how it affected me, and for that I am extremely grateful. In the introduction Cowen mentions that Nick Hayes, who beautifully illustrated the book, said that when reading the poems it felt like ‘healing in the heeding’ and that is the exact feeling I felt.
I didn’t know I needed to read this book, but it put me through every emotion and has touched my heart in ways no other book has done before. It’s now one of those books that give me a warm, fuzzy feeling when I look at it.
I had so many favourites, I even committed the unforgivable crime of dogearing my favourite pages - I understand if you unfollow me after reading this lol. My favourites included: Noises Off, This Is How A Spider Is Seen, Lost, The Pact, Starling, Last Breaths, Moor, Matter, This Allotment, Viking Gold & Wolf.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Animal death, Alcohol, and Dementia
harrietsbookcorner's review
2.0
This poetry collection wasn’t 100% my cup of tea. So far I haven’t really tried much modern poetry, so perhaps that was why it was jarring for me to see the word ‘eBay’ written in a poem. I did like a few of the poems, I liked the messages within others and liked the illustrations, but it was maybe just not for me. 2.5⭐️.