Polly Atkin
Polly Atkin is a multi-award-winning writer, essayist and poet based in Grasmere, Cumbria, where she has worked and researched at Dove Cottage, home of the Wordsworths. Her first poetry collection, Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017), won a Northern Wrtier’s Award and was followed by a third pamphlet, With Invisible Rain (New Walk: 2018). Her first pamphlet, bone song (Aussteiger, 2008), was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Pamphlet Award, 2009, and second, Shadow Dispatches (Seren, 2013), won the Mslexia Pamphlet Prize, 2012. Recovering Dorothy, a biography of Dorothy Wordsworth, was published by Saraband in 2021.
BUYING OPTIONS
Buy Swimming the Seasons
The transformative power of year-round freshwater swimming.
Poet and nature writer Polly Atkin invites us to take a dip in the rivers, tarns, and lakes where she swims year-round, finding inspiration and freedom every day. In this intimate, beautiful book, she shares her engagement with the crystal cold water and how this reconnects her body and mind with the natural world.
Through luminous, attentive prose, Atkin captures the impact of immersion and the allure of the Lakeland landscapes that surround her. Drawing on her experience of disability, she shows how swimming can open up space for ease, relief and sometimes joy.
Whether bracing herself for icy streams or floating on a summer evening, Atkin’s reflections remind us to slow down, breathe, and enjoy being fully present. This is a book about resilience, mindfulness and the transformative embrace of wild water.
