John Challis The Green Parcel: Observer Poetry Book of the Month review
'John Challis writes with beauty and passion of the so-called every day… he gives us all majesty and a kind of shimmering quality…’ – Ian McMillan
The rural terrain of John Challis’s second full-length collection The Green Parcel (Bloodaxe Books, June 2026) provides a new lens for exploring history, class and work, our relationship to the natural world, and cycles of growth and decay. Much of his debut collection The Resurrectionists concerned working lives in the city: his father a London cabbie, his grandfather a market porter. Here his focus shifts to a crumbling stately home in Northumberland brought to life through the voices of the grounds as well as those who inhabit it and maintain it. London is at a distance. We find ourselves beyond, in backyards, on motorways, in fields, searching for the green patch in Kent, where an East End family picked hops in the summer.
John Challis was born in London in 1984. His pamphlet, The Black Cab (Poetry Salzburg, 2017), was a 2019 New Writing North Read Regional title. His first book-length collection, The Resurrectionists, was published by Bloodaxe in 2021. He has held several residencies. In 2015 he was a poet-in-residence with the Northern Poetry Library and chosen as one of the Poetry Trust’s Aldeburgh Eight. His other residencies have included ones at Keats Shelley House in Rome, and at Seaton Delaval Hall, a National Trust property in Northumberland, which produced Hallsong, a pamphlet of poems, and a film collaboration with filmmaker Christo Wallers. Poems from his Seaton Delaval Hall residency are also included in his second full-length collection The Green Parcel (Bloodaxe Books, June 2026). The Green Parcel was longlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2026.
He has received a Pushcart Prize and a Northern Writers’ Award for his work and was Highly Commended in the 2021 Forward Prizes for Poetry. John has also written reviews and essays and produced poetry for public art projects in Northumberland. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University, where he worked as a Research Associate. He now teaches at York St John University and lives in York.
Scroll down to watch the film London Draft featuring John Challis reading and speaking about poems from his second collection The Green Parcel, and Hallsong, a 2022 video filmed at Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland featuring the poems written during his residency.
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ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
Write Out Loud, online 1 August 2026
An excellent review of John Challis’s second collection The Green Parcel went online at Write Out Loud on 1 August 2026.
'The Green Parcel marks a decisive widening of terrain. Where Challis’s debut The Resurrectionists was rooted in the working lives and oft ignored histories of the city, this new book turns more to the rural. The crumbling stately home of Seaton Delaval in Northumberland, farmland in Kent and even the American West lend themselves to thoughts of our relationship to the natural world and cycles of growth and decay. Subterranean in context, the poems concern themselves with a need to escape, juxtaposed with a desire to belong, and are liberally punctuated by reflections on fatherhood, ageing and loss. [...] This collection confirms Challis as a poet alert to the pressure of place, how landscapes hold memory, class, violence, tenderness and unfinished business.' – Kate Boston-Williams, Write Out Loud
https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=146804
New Writing North, New and Recent Poetry from the North: Summer 2026, online 19 June 2026
John Challis’s second collection The Green Parcel was well reviewed in brief at the top of the summer issue of Will Mackie’s New and Recent Poetry from the North feature which went online at New Writing North on 19 June 2026.
‘This substantial collection represents a shift in the poet’s focus, as well as a broadening of his lens and concerns, while also being deeply personal. There are some close, elegant poems about fatherhood, such as ‘Kindling’, as well as poems that capture intimate moments, such as the gorgeous and questioning ‘North Shields Nocturn’.' – Will Mackie, New and Recent Poetry from the North: Summer 2026, on The Green Parcel
https://newwritingnorth.com/journal/new-and-recent-poetry-from-the-north-summer-2026/
Wild Court, online 17 June 2026
An in-depth review of The Green Parcel went online in Wild Court on 17 June 2026. The review also refers to John’s debut collection The Resurrectionists.
‘Here is articulation and exhibition of things described that manages to enter almost the mythic in world-building. […] The Green Parcel does not lend itself to easy summation, and nor should it. Poetry of this consistently high quality is for the reader far more than the critic. I stand by my recommendation to judge it by its cover because its cover tells us that it is a poetry collection by John Challis, and that means we need to read it.’ – Patrick Davidson Roberts, Wild Court
https://wildcourt.co.uk/a-sacred-interest-on-the-green-parcel-by-john-challis/
Newcastle Poetry Festival blog, online 16 June 2026
Newcastle Poetry Festival’s new website, launched on 16 June, has a blog featuring reviews of new books along with some backlist titles. The Newcastle Poetry Festival will run from 2 to 3 October 2026.
The Bloodaxe titles reviewed so far on the blog include John Challis’s second collection The Green Parcel, Penelope Shuttle’s new collection History of the Child, American poet Patricia Smith’s The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems, and Neil Astley’s 2017 anthology Land of Three Rivers: The Poetry of North-East England,
https://www.newcastlepoetryfestival.org.uk/reviews-and-interviews
POETRY BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW IN THE OBSERVER
The Observer, Poetry Books of the Month, Sunday 31 May 2026
John Challis’s second full-length collection The Green Parcel was reviewed as one of Jade Cuttle's Poetry Books of the Month in The Observer of 31 May 2026 ahead of the book's publication in June. It was reviewed alongside Kim Moore's third collection The House of Broken Things under the headline 'The republic of parenthood: new collections from Kim Moore and John Challis meditate on the joy and trepidation of bringing children into the world'.
'...for Challis, when thoughts crystallise they do so with force [...] These poems are sharp and satisfying – and can be consumed in stolen moments of parental calm. While Challis’s 2021 debut collection, The Resurrectionists, dwelled in the working lives of the city – a London cabbie father, a market porter grandfather; cockle pickers, butchers and barrow boys – this second book has a greener and grander canvas.' – Jade Cuttle, The Observer (Poetry Books of the Month)
The feature was published in print in The New Review supplement of The Observer on 31 May 2026.
The online edition is accompanied by John Challis's poem 'The Orbital' from The Green Parcel.
https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/poetry-books-of-the-month-the-republic-of-parenthood
Poetry Book Society Bulletin, Summer 2026
The Green Parcel was given an excellent review by Shash Trevett in the Summer Books Review section of the PBS Summer Bulletin.
‘John Challis’s second collection examines the lives of those who both work on, and are part of, the landscape. […] A fantastic collection which interrogates belonging while recognising that one’s “green and pleasant land / is the stuff of poetry”.’ – Shash Trevett, Poetry Book Society Summer 2026 Bulletin, on The Green Parcel
In print only. The Bulletin is sent to members of the Poetry Book Society.
London Draft: a poem film by David Spittle, 24 April 2026
In February 2026, John Challis and filmmaker David Spittle visited the industrial Thames estuary and the Cranham Marsh Nature Reserve near where Challis grew up, to explore connections between memory, place and poetry. London Draft is a record of searching for the places that leave their traces on the imagination and the self.
The film includes John Challis reading his poems ‘Youth’, ‘Night God, ‘London’s Edge’, ‘Pylons’, and ‘The Green Parcel’ from his second collection The Green Parcel (Bloodaxe, 2026).
A film by David Spittle, with music by Days Like Television.
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Hallsong: a poem film by Christo Wallers, 1 November 2022
Film by Christo Wallers, with poetry by John Challis, written during his time as writer-in-residence at Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland. Filmed on location at the National Trust property, with poems read by John Challis as well as by Seaton Delaval Hall staff.
Music: Wind Harp - Thomas Rex Beverley
Hallsong was created as part of a residency produced by the National Trust and New Writing North within Rising Stars, a partnership with Northumbria University which formed part of Seaton Delaval Hall’s National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported Curtain Rises project.
The poems read are 'Winter Opening Hours', 'Hallsong', 'What we know', 'Ha-Ha', 'The best is still below', 'The Servants', 'Letter from a Farmer', 'Underhouse', 'Conductor', 'Closing Night', 'A Way of Knowing' and 'The Mausoleum'. The poems were first published in the limited edition pamphlet Hallsong: poems for Seaton Delaval Hall (New Writing North/the National Trust, 2022).
All of these poems (apart from 'The Servants, 'Letter from a Farmer' and 'Conductor') are now included in John Challis's second full-length collection The Green Parcel (Bloodaxe, 2026).
ONLINE LAUNCH EVENT
Tuesday 23 June 2026, 7pm BST
Online launch event with John Challis, Frank Ormsby and Lawrence Sail
Joint online launch event for new June 2026 titles by John Challis, Frank Ormsby and Lawrence Sail.
John Challis, Frank Ormsby and Lawrence Sail joined us online to celebrate the publication of their new June 2026 books, with John Challis and Lawrence Sail by reading live from their books. Frank Ormsby draws on his experience of living with Parkinson's Disease in his recent work and is unable to take part, but has been able to make audio recordings to be played during this event with screen-shared poems from his book. The post-reading discussion with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley, featured John Challis and Lawrence Sail along with Frank Ormsby's friend, the writer and broadcaster Malachi O'Doherty, who made the audio recordings.
This free Bloodaxe launch event was be streamed on YouTube Live and is now available to watch on this YouTube page:: https://youtube.com/live/6OitDbheZ8A
PAST READINGS & RECORDINGS
The Verb: After Dark Festival: The Chance to Change, BBC Radio 3, Friday 25 March 2022, 10pm
John Challis was a guest on a special edition of The Verb recorded in front of an audience at the After Dark Festival at Sage Gateshead. John read from his debut collection The Resurrectionists. The book is mostly set in London, but John has been based in North-East England for over ten years.
The recording took place on Saturday 18 March 2022 at Sage Gateshead’s Northern Rock Foundation Hall.
Listen here.
NEWCASTLE POETRY FESTIVAL 2022
John Challis reads poems from The Resurrectionists: 'The Knowledge'; 'Plague Ground'; 'This is the market'; 'Thames'; 'Driving home from hospital after the hottest day of the year'; 'Night Change'; 'Hansard'; 'Naming the Light' and 'Prayer at the Edge of the West'. Filmed by Peter Hebden. Special thanks to Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts.
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John Challis's first full-length collection The Resurrectionists was published by Bloodaxe Books in June 2021.
An interview with John Challis is on Shuddhashar Magazine here, along with some poems from The Resurrectionists.
'Thames' from The Resurrectionists was discussed by Carol Rumens in her online Poem of the Week column in The Guardian of 20 September 2021. Read here.
Two poems from the collection were featured online in Wild Court here.
The Resurrectionists was reviewed as a Poetry Book of the Month in The Guardian of 5 June 2021. A slightly longer version of Ben Wilkinson's review is online here.
[27 May 2026]
