Happy Publication Day: This Common Uncommon

When a local common is threatened with development, one poet explores its secrets, discovering extraordinary natural treasures and wonderful people fighting to defend them. 

Can they save this uncommon common?

This Common Uncommon, the second collection from poet Rae Howells is available now! Pick up your copy in your local bookshop or direct from our website. 

A lovely 5 star review up on Goodreads today too: 

'Howells’ poems shriek with the wonder of discovery ... She is intoxicated by the Common, forced to rework language in an effort to encompass what she finds ... I admire the collection so much, wild in every possible way ... But there’s an urgency to the work here for “this soft flank of earth” is under threat. Developers wish to transform the anonymous “Land North of Chestnut Avenue” into affordable housing in a process which will sweep the astonishing Common away. Local resistance is growing and these poems in part illuminate and record that effort ... But most of all the book asks what sort of future we want for our world ... Very highly recommended.' – Ewan Smith

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BOOK REVIEW: 'one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Welsh writing in English'

There is a wonderful extended review essay 'Ecological Literacy' by Steven Lovatt in the latest issue of New Welsh Review exploring recent books that seek to restore natural and cultural ecologies and recognise how the cultural nature of our landscapes is preserved in language. It offers an in-depth look at This Common Uncommon by Rae Howells, and here are three of our favourite snippets: "Rae Howells’ new poetry collection, This Common Uncommon , is a fierce and loving affirmation of the local, exemplifying the sort of care-full attention to the interdependence of people, other animals and plants that will be required if anything worthwhile is to be saved from the present ruin." "Howells confirms the evidence of her first collection, The Language of Bees, that she is a highly adept poet, possessing one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Welsh writing in English." "If West Cross Common is developed for housing, nobody can now claim ignoran...

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