The Winter Wizard by Sam Retallick Karen Solie ‘full-ripe’ poems that breath-takingly reveal

‘full-ripe’ poems that breath-takingly reveal experience rarely discussed

We can see the influences of Polish poetry in the irony and search for meaning in a new cultural landscape

sold thousands and was reprinted six times

doors – suggest the slow and repetitive process of grieving

and a rumination on the legacy of migration and empires

The Winter Wizard by Sam Retallick Karen Solie ‘full-ripe’ poems that breath-takingly revealPublished 31st August 2025. Sam Retallicks The Winter Wizard is a folkloric sequence that blends whimsy, melancholy, and myth in an imaginative coming of age narrative. Set in a liminal landscape of moor, woodland, and sea, the poem conjures a dreamlike Cornwall populated by magical figures, talking bobbins, and vanished saints. Through deceptively simple language and shifting forms, Retallick explores grief, seasonal transition, and queer self