Material Properties, Jacob Polley's fiith collection of poems with Picador, 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’.

The poems have an unforced charm, delighting in the wonder that surrounds us

Jacob Polley is the author of five poetry collections with Picador, including Material Properties, The Havocs, winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and Jackself, which received the 2016 T.S. Eliot Award. His first novel, Talk of the Town, a fiercely demotic coming-of-age murder mystery, won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2010. From Carlisle, in Cumbria, he now lives with his family on the coast at Whitley Bay and teaches at Newcastle University.