Rachael Boast’s first collection is dominated by astral influence and divine chance, by unseen or remote causes; but despite its celestial title, Sidereal is full of terrestrial concerns, the traffic and chaos of the human and natural worlds. Ultimately, however, it is the work of a poet who believes that we must also turn our gaze skywards to make sense of who we are, and these poems pursue their elliptical but inevitable orbits through a world where the earthly and transcendent are thoroughly interfused. Above all, Sidereal impresses through Boast’s lyric faith, which through even the worst pain and despair can still offer its clarities and revelations, and announces an important new voice in British poetry.

Sidereal is winner of the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry 2012.

Prizes

Winner of Forward Prize for Poetry Best First Collection 2011 (UK),Short-listed for Scottish Book Awards First Book Award 2012 (UK)

Rachael Boast is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Hotel Raphael. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Blackbox Manifold, Chicago Review, Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Review, TLS and The Scores. She is co-editor of The Echoing Gallery: Bristol Poets and Art in the City (Redcliffe Press, 2013) and The Caught Habits of Language: An Entertainment for W.S. Graham for Him Having Reached One Hundred (Donut Press, 2018). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Advisor to the Estate of W.S. Graham and a disability advocate. She lives in Suffolk.