{"product_id":"precarious-lives","title":"Precarious Lives","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003ePrecarious Lives\u003c\/i\u003e, Jean Watkins’ second collection, celebrates the diversity of wildlife, landscape, art and human experience. Events and lives are described in sensuous detail. Throughout, the poet is conscious of our tenuous hold on life, the perennial threats we face, as well as those more recent ones inaugurated by the coming of climate change.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003efrom reviews of \u003ci\u003eScrimshaw\u003c\/i\u003e (Two Rivers Press, 2013):\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Jean Watkins … illustrates a particular gift for concrete detail with poems so rich in the senses that they seem to lift off the page … This collection also includes a number of poems which have a sparkly ‘stand alone’ quality’ – \u003ci\u003eThe North\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Watkins works our imaginations through our senses and, as with the best short poems, the story is rich in what Roland Barthes called \u003ci\u003eblind field\u003c\/i\u003e, the white area around a photograph, the world around a poem’ – \u003ci\u003eLondon Grip\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Watkins’ sense of detail is sharp, whether describing nature, an urban scene in Reading or family matters. … Make no mistake, these are poems crafted as carefully as the artefacts and heirlooms they sometimes describe … and I am left wanting more’ – \u003ci\u003eThe Interpreter’s House\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MediaPlace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57316148085118,"sku":"NW9781909747418","price":9.72,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1379\/1261\/files\/9781909747418.jpg?v=1778717795","url":"https:\/\/mediaplace.com\/products\/precarious-lives","provider":"MediaPlace","version":"1.0","type":"link"}