These are poems with strong, straight-talking narratives punctuated by keenly observed birds amidst the bleak land and seascapes of northern Britain. This early collection of poems by Arts Council (UK) award-winning writer Sue Vickerman is about relationships that are illustrated, if not shaped and directed by, that sometimes harsh world that is 'nature'. Her poems have been described as "windows onto worlds where various degrees of unsatisfactoriness are revealed… The essential mode is 'watching' and Sue Vickerman's gaze is uncompromising, direct and wide-ranging; her language dense and gritty, at home on the edge of things" - Linda France (editor, 'Sixty Women Poets', Bloodaxe Books). "Salty, stony, fierce, loving, and sometimes sharp… Poems that will ruffle your feathers, full of acute glimpses of the underneath of things" - Julia Darling. "Edgy, elemental, tender, they help me to understand more about what it is I'm doing, being human" - Subhadassi.