Afterlife
New & Selected Poems
Published on 26. February 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
208 pages
978-1-78037-372-0 (ISBN)
Description
Polly Clark's poetry inhabits a world that is strange, unsettling, and edged with danger. Her debut, Kiss (2000), journeys inward, exploring the self with an unflinching gaze, before Take Me with You (2005) turns outward to question how we connect - with others, with the wider world, with the unknown. In these collections, her characters, both human and animal, speak in many voices, illuminating the moments when we are most alive - and most alone. Farewell My Lovely (2009) grapples with the price of survival, charting the experience of leaving one's life behind and returning as a stranger. By turns moving and darkly comic, these poems examine the ways we cling to who we were, even as certainty dissolves and the past slips beyond reach.
This retrospective of her poetry opens with a magical new collection - also called Afterlife - in which there are no physical limits, nothing is stable and the world is distilled to its elements. The traumatic experience of rape transforms a girl into a tiger, and a tiger into a girl; a whale embraces both air and water until forced to inhabit only one by jealous fish. The poems grapple with the inexplicable nature of some experience, suggesting that we are most real in that mysterious space between living and dying.
Polly Clark is an award-winning poet and novelist. Her first collection, Kiss, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her second,Take Me with You, a Poetry Book Society Choice, was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
This retrospective of her poetry opens with a magical new collection - also called Afterlife - in which there are no physical limits, nothing is stable and the world is distilled to its elements. The traumatic experience of rape transforms a girl into a tiger, and a tiger into a girl; a whale embraces both air and water until forced to inhabit only one by jealous fish. The poems grapple with the inexplicable nature of some experience, suggesting that we are most real in that mysterious space between living and dying.
Polly Clark is an award-winning poet and novelist. Her first collection, Kiss, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her second,Take Me with You, a Poetry Book Society Choice, was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
Reviews / Votes
A rich and appealingly mysterious collection in which the end of youth, the birth of a child and the strangeness of marriage are filtered through an exact imagination, whose great strengths lie in taking nothing for granted and finding the point where the ordinary and the eternal intersect. -- Sean O'Brien * Sunday Times, on Farewell My Lovely * Clark has a gift for startling, truthful analysis, for example of the power of marriage and our vulnerability within it: 'Its strength shocked me./ Dragged me. Reset me.' There are resonant poems about female experience which are also searingly universal.... Throughout the poems in Farewell My Lovely ideas are anchored in the real world with recognisable images, but suddenly wrenched out of the commonplace, shocking the reader out of any complacency. These are poems you can return to again and again. I recommend that you do. -- Catherine Czerkawska * The Edinburgh Review * Polly Clark has mastered the necessary art of saying two things at once. The surface of her poems maintains a bright, even brisk tone; it's full of fresh, unexpected phrasings. And yet the imagery points to a darker underbelly. It's a poetry in which our certainties are tested and exposed as brittle. -- W.N. Herbert * PBS Bulletin, on Take Me with You * The strength of this collection lies in images so precisely right that they immediately establish the authenticity of whichever perspective is adopted. Her carefully weighted words build pictures of remarkable clarity. -- Sarah Crown * The Guardian, on Take Me with You *More details
Edition
Paperback original
Language
English
Place of publication
Tyne and Wear
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
406 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78037-372-0 (9781780373720)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Polly Clark was born in Canada and brought up in Scotland. She received an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1997. Three collections followed from Bloodaxe: the first, Kiss (2000), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; her second, Take Me with You (2005), was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; her third was Farewell My Lovely (2009). Her pamphlet, A Handbook for the Afterlife, was shortlisted in the 2016 Michael Marks Awards. Poems from these collections and new poems are included in her forthcoming Afterlife: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2026). Her debut novel, Larchfield (Quercus, 2017), fictionalised a little-known period in the life of W.H. Auden. It won the Mslexia Prize, as well as critical plaudits from Margaret Atwood, Louis de Bernieres and Richard Ford. Her follow-up, Tiger (Quercus, 2019), was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year. Her third novel, Ocean, was published by Eye Books in 2025. Polly Clark's essays and journalism have been published in The Guardian, The Scotsman, The Observer and The Financial Times, and on her Substack, Monday Night Reads. Her poetry has been widely broadcast on BBC radio. She divides her time between the west of Scotland and a houseboat in London.
Content
Afterlife (2026)
15 Sculpture
16 Muse
18 Birdsong
20 Paella Night
21 Heaven
22 That night a storm
24 Men
25 Seawanhaka Yacht Club
26 Io
27 Highland Cow
28 How to be a Poet
29 Handbook
30 Drain
32 The Woman Zoo
33 Hive
34 Port Meadow
35 The Crowded Earth
36 Interrogation
37 Crossing
38 Graduation Photo, 1964
39 The Mermaid
40 Follower
42 The Pet Man
43 Her Kind
44 My Mother's Hands
45 Fire Starter
46 Spell
48 Pelican
49 Whale
50 Tiger, Tiger
from Kiss (2000)
55 Love Story
56 Snow
57 Letter from Pecs
58 Road to Chisholm
59 Brief Encounter
60 Adultery
61 Retribution
62 Zoo
64 When You Were Made
65 In the Pool Room
66 Pilgrimage
67 South Uist
68 Where Swans Have Lain Down
69 If You're Interested
70 Last Tango in the Men's Department
71 My Life with Horses
72 A Lunch Date with My Father
73 Take-off
74 My Mother Marries My Father
75 When I Close my Eyes
76 Flowers
77 Excitement
78 New Forest Ponies
79 Walk in the Rain
80 Sunset
81 Amsterdam
82 Szecheny Ter
82 I The Consultant
83 II The Angels
84 III The Wish
85 IV The Dream
86 Szalon Soer
87 How to Love You
88 Stephen Selects the Photographs
90 Letter to the Man I Love
92 Casualty Report
93 Crime of Passion
94 My Education at the Zoo
96 Dora
98 Baby
99 The Pet Rabbit
100 The Walk of Faith
102 Dear Virginia Ironside
103 The Writing on the Fridge
104 Bears
106 Pilate Comes to My Father's Deathbed
108 Progress Diary
109 Metamorphosis
110 Kleptomaniac
111 My Faithless Mouth
from Take Me with You (2005)
115 The Poetry God
116 My Life, the Sea
117 The Voyage of the Rays
118 Swan
119 Fishing Boat
120 Hedgehog
121 Elvis the Performing Octopus
122 Nibbling
123 Buffalo Mozzarella
124 Baize
125 The Lexicographer Finishes P
126 Nagyvazsony Castle
127 Proposal from the Bottle Bank
128 My Husband
129 Dumbarton
130 Your Wife
132 Mule
133 Women
134 Two Views of Loch Long
134 i Dance
135 ii Lost Property
136 Two Views of a Submarine
138 Still Life with Table and Loch
139 Wave
140 Fairytale
141 Defenestration
142 Desiderata
143 Domestic Science
144 Rainbow
145 XX
146 My America
147 Beijing
148 Chengdu Massage
149 Flights Over Siberia
150 Bride
from Farewell My Lovely (2009)
I Thought It Was in Scotland: a Falklands war story
155 Landing
156 Not a Crap Hat
157 May Your God Go with You
158 Wild Horses
159 Dear Mum
160 Bruce Lee at Goose Green
161 Fame!
165 Bay Tree
166 You Would Drop Your Spade
167 Tour of Landscapes by the Artist
168 Bar Harbor, Maine
169 Shoes
170 Yariguies Brush Finch
171 Marriage
172 Disorder
173 Farewell My Lovely
174 Dressed Up As Someone
175 Islay
176 Little Black Dog
177 Dog Opera
178 Trash
179 Our Baby
180 Laparoscopy
181 Moon
182 Return to Eden
183 Magnificat
184 Beheaded
185 Special Care Unit
186 She
187 Ladies
188 Directions
189 The First Woman
190 Friends
191 Smile
192 Another Girl
193 The Book of Truths
194 Struck
197 Baby Group
198 A Bench for Me
199 Soup
200 Sex in the City
201 Last Will and Testament
202 Thank You
203 Advice to a Daughter
204 To My Husband
205 Tell Laura I Love Her
15 Sculpture
16 Muse
18 Birdsong
20 Paella Night
21 Heaven
22 That night a storm
24 Men
25 Seawanhaka Yacht Club
26 Io
27 Highland Cow
28 How to be a Poet
29 Handbook
30 Drain
32 The Woman Zoo
33 Hive
34 Port Meadow
35 The Crowded Earth
36 Interrogation
37 Crossing
38 Graduation Photo, 1964
39 The Mermaid
40 Follower
42 The Pet Man
43 Her Kind
44 My Mother's Hands
45 Fire Starter
46 Spell
48 Pelican
49 Whale
50 Tiger, Tiger
from Kiss (2000)
55 Love Story
56 Snow
57 Letter from Pecs
58 Road to Chisholm
59 Brief Encounter
60 Adultery
61 Retribution
62 Zoo
64 When You Were Made
65 In the Pool Room
66 Pilgrimage
67 South Uist
68 Where Swans Have Lain Down
69 If You're Interested
70 Last Tango in the Men's Department
71 My Life with Horses
72 A Lunch Date with My Father
73 Take-off
74 My Mother Marries My Father
75 When I Close my Eyes
76 Flowers
77 Excitement
78 New Forest Ponies
79 Walk in the Rain
80 Sunset
81 Amsterdam
82 Szecheny Ter
82 I The Consultant
83 II The Angels
84 III The Wish
85 IV The Dream
86 Szalon Soer
87 How to Love You
88 Stephen Selects the Photographs
90 Letter to the Man I Love
92 Casualty Report
93 Crime of Passion
94 My Education at the Zoo
96 Dora
98 Baby
99 The Pet Rabbit
100 The Walk of Faith
102 Dear Virginia Ironside
103 The Writing on the Fridge
104 Bears
106 Pilate Comes to My Father's Deathbed
108 Progress Diary
109 Metamorphosis
110 Kleptomaniac
111 My Faithless Mouth
from Take Me with You (2005)
115 The Poetry God
116 My Life, the Sea
117 The Voyage of the Rays
118 Swan
119 Fishing Boat
120 Hedgehog
121 Elvis the Performing Octopus
122 Nibbling
123 Buffalo Mozzarella
124 Baize
125 The Lexicographer Finishes P
126 Nagyvazsony Castle
127 Proposal from the Bottle Bank
128 My Husband
129 Dumbarton
130 Your Wife
132 Mule
133 Women
134 Two Views of Loch Long
134 i Dance
135 ii Lost Property
136 Two Views of a Submarine
138 Still Life with Table and Loch
139 Wave
140 Fairytale
141 Defenestration
142 Desiderata
143 Domestic Science
144 Rainbow
145 XX
146 My America
147 Beijing
148 Chengdu Massage
149 Flights Over Siberia
150 Bride
from Farewell My Lovely (2009)
I Thought It Was in Scotland: a Falklands war story
155 Landing
156 Not a Crap Hat
157 May Your God Go with You
158 Wild Horses
159 Dear Mum
160 Bruce Lee at Goose Green
161 Fame!
165 Bay Tree
166 You Would Drop Your Spade
167 Tour of Landscapes by the Artist
168 Bar Harbor, Maine
169 Shoes
170 Yariguies Brush Finch
171 Marriage
172 Disorder
173 Farewell My Lovely
174 Dressed Up As Someone
175 Islay
176 Little Black Dog
177 Dog Opera
178 Trash
179 Our Baby
180 Laparoscopy
181 Moon
182 Return to Eden
183 Magnificat
184 Beheaded
185 Special Care Unit
186 She
187 Ladies
188 Directions
189 The First Woman
190 Friends
191 Smile
192 Another Girl
193 The Book of Truths
194 Struck
197 Baby Group
198 A Bench for Me
199 Soup
200 Sex in the City
201 Last Will and Testament
202 Thank You
203 Advice to a Daughter
204 To My Husband
205 Tell Laura I Love Her