Gillian Allnutt's Lode reviewed in The Guardian & Telegraph
Gillian Allnutt's tenth collection Lode is published by Bloodaxe Books in May 2025. It is being launched with a number of readings around North-East England, where Gillian Allnutt has lived for the past thirty years.
The lode in Gillian Allnutt’s title picks up on two of the many meanings of the word. A lode can be a course, a way, a journey; also a road, a lane. Her collection traces a journey through time, the time of her own life and of our lives, since the Second World War. Lode also means guidance, here the guidance afforded by the continuity and relative stability – economic, cultural, spiritual – of Britain’s postwar years, the setting of the first part of the book.
Gillian Allnutt's earlier collections Nantucket and the Angel and Lintel were both shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Poems from these collections are included in her Bloodaxe retrospective How the Bicycle Shone: New & Selected Poems (2007), which draws on six published books plus a new collection, Wolf Light, and was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Her most recent collections from Bloodaxe are indwelling (2013) and wake (2018), with her tenth collection Lode published in May 2025.
Gillian Allnutt was awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2016. The Medal, awarded for excellence in poetry, was made on the basis of her body of work. Her poetry has been published by Bloodaxe Books since 1994.
‘From her first collection published in the early 1980s, Gillian Allnutt’s work has always been in conversation with the natural world and the spiritual life. Her writing roams across centuries, very different histories and lives, and draws together, without excuse or explanation, moments which link across country, class, culture and time. The North is a constant touchstone in her work; canny and uncanny, its hills and coast, its ancient histories and its people. Her poems progress over the years to a kind of synthesis of word-play and meditation. In her work the space between what is offered and what is withheld is every bit as important as what is said. She has the power to comfort and to astonish in equal measure. In her outlook, her imagination, her concerns and her lyric voice she is unique.’ – Dame Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate, for The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry Award Committee 2016
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Lode was very well reviewed in the inaugural issue of The Little Review, Summer 2025.
'Allnutt's power is in her restraint. [...] The last line of verse in the collection is 'World without edge'; a fresh doxology for a still unknowable modern world, and the perfect final note for a quietly boundless collection that confirms Allnutt as one of the best English poets writing today.' – Mary Anne Clarke, The Little Review, on Lode
POETRY BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW IN THE TELEGRAPH
The Telegraph, Poetry Book of the Month, online 16 May 2025, in print Saturday 24 May 2025
Gillian Allnutt’s tenth collection Lode was very well reviewed as Jeremy Wikeley’s Poetry Book of the Month for May 2025 in The Telegraph. His review appeared online on 16 May illustrated with a photograph of Queen Elizabeth II presenting Gillian Allnutt with The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry 2016 at Buckingham Palace in 2017. The article was published in print in the Review supplement on Saturday 24 May under the standfirst 'Gillian Allnutt's work is deft, disarming and often devastating'.
‘Allnutt’s poems move between playfulness and austerity, eccentricity and anonymity. These might be distinctly English qualities – there’s a line here to poets such as Stevie Smith, Geoffrey Hill and Peter Didsbury. Ultimately, though, she resists comparison. Lode isn’t a departure from anything since Blackthorn (1994), her breakthrough collection. But this latest book may yet make her a lodestar for more readers, if they find their way to it. They should.’ – Jeremy Wikeley, The Telegraph (on Lode, his Poetry Book of the Month for May 2025)
The online edition is available to read in full without subscription. It currently appears at the top of their ‘The best poetry books of 2025 so far’ feature.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/best-poetry-books-reviews/
REVIEW IN THE GUARDIAN
The Guardian, Poetry Books of the Month, Saturday 3 May 2025
Gillian Allnutt’s tenth collection Lode was well reviewed as part of Rishi Dastidar’s Poetry Books of the Month feature for May 2025 in The Guardian.
'There are some indelible images in the poems […] More than this, Allnutt suggests there is a space beyond time that we can sometimes glimpse, and perhaps even gain comfort from…’ – Rishi Dastidar, The Guardian (Poetry Books of the Month)
The review appeared in print on 3 May in The Guardian’s Saturday magazine. Available online via The Guardian's website.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/may/02/the-best-recent-poetry-review-roundup
INTERVIEW WITH GILLIAN ALLNUTT IN MONK
MONK magazine, Issue 2, October 2021, online 5 April 2022
An eight-page interview with Gillian Allnutt, focusing on poetry and spirituality, featured in the second issue of MONK, an international magazine exploring creativity and spirituality. The article appeared in print in October 2021, and was posted online on 5 April 2022. It was illustrated with a specially-taken photo of Gillian at her home in County Durham, and a double-page photograph of Durham Cathedral. The article was entitled ‘Under Northern Skies: Divinations of a Warrior Poet’.
The magazine also featured Gillian's new poem about Mary Magdalene, commissioned by BBC Radio 2 in Spring 2021, which is now published in Lode (2025).
https://monk.gallery/interviews/gillian-allnutt-under-northern-skies-divinations-of-a-warrior-poet/
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Gillian Allnutt spoke about and read from her ninth collection wake on BBC Radio 4's Front Row in May 2018. Click here to listen. Archived in chapters (final item). Download the podcast to hear an extra poem.
[02 May 2025]
