Cold Mountain and the Sea

Barry Hill's Cold Mountain and The Sea arises from two summers of swimming with the Zen Poet Han Shan. It comes hard on the heels of his Selected Poems (2018) and Kind Fire (2020), published to acclaim. Here's a taste of it: 'Yesterday the sea was so / Beautifully ultramarine / with the Indigo rippling beneath / you walked in expecting/ anything but stillness. ... Dumb, Han Shan cackled. / Get a grip on yourself. / There's no future in happiness. / You know that.' Of Barry Hill's earlier works, Ghosting William Buckley (1993) won a Premier's Award; Necessity: Poems 1996-2006 won the ACT Judith Wright Award; Lines For Birds (2011), with artist John Wolseley, was commended for the Prime Minister's Prize. Barry's Naked Clay: Drawing from Lucian Freud (2012) was short-listed for the 2013 UK Forward Prize.