Material Properties

Jacob Polley

Material Properties asks what it might mean to interpret and translate wildness into human language and human understanding. The book is a multi-faceted and vital exploration of the non-human, the elemental and the borders between existences. Through poems of parenthood at a time of environmental emergency, and poetic versions of Old English riddles in which animals, objects and natural phenomena speak, the book poses essential questions about our relationship with the living world and with each other.

Praise for previous work, Jackself, from T.S. Eliot Prize judges: ‘a firework of a book, inventive, exciting and outstanding in its imaginative range and depth of feeling’.