Cyclone

Robert Peake's second full collection of poems is about weathering storms—personal, political, psychological—in our present-day climate of chaos. These are matters of life or death, and Cyclone urges us to consider what the ill wind may bring, and how we will survive it.
Peake's acutely tuned poems bring eloquence and urgency to matters of profound devastation. With shattering delicacy, he writes of personal loss, of grief and the long aftermath; "whenever the wind sprays into my face, I taste salt of your absence".
These poems also hazard an eye at the global weather and find a world in turmoil, wild with unreliable news and terrible forecasts. Manifesting between the storms is the man with the kindest face. Is he here to save us or warn us? A guide or a harbinger? As these brilliantly-visioned poems suggest, nothing is certain in the eye of the storm. Nevertheless, there is some form of consolation and rescue: "He seems at home in this tempest. He seems happy".

Robert Peake is a British-American poet. His previous full-length collection is The Knowledge (Nine Arches Press, 2015). His work has featured in Acumen, Iota, Magma, The Interpreters House, The North, Berkeley Poetry Review, North American Review, and Poetry International. His film-poem collaborations have been widely screened at festivals throughout the US, UK, and Europe. Robert founded the Transatlantic Poetry online reading series and is a Poetry Surgery tutor for The Poetry Society. He lives with his wife and cat in rural Hertfordshire.