The Heeding

"Dazzling, moving... A book that will touch many, and be given often: here, take this, you must read this." —Robert Macfarlane

"So vivid... A call out to our elemental relationship with love and nature. Beautiful." —Willem Dafoe

The world changed in 2020. Gradually at first, then quickly and irreversibly, the patterns by which we once lived altered completely.

Across four seasons and a luminous series of poems and illustrations, Rob Cowen and Nick Hayes paint a picture of a year caught in the grip of history yet filled with revelatory perspectives close at hand.

A sparrowhawk hunting in a back street; the moon over a town with a loved one’s hand held tight; butterflies massing in a high-summer yard—the everyday wonders and memories that shape a life and help us recall our own.

The Heeding leads us on a journey that takes its markers and signs from nature and a world filled with fear and pain but beauty and wonder too. Collecting birds, animals, trees, and people together, it is a profound meditation to a time no one will forget. At its heart, this is a book that helps us look again, to heed: to be attentive to this world we share, to grieve what’s lost, and to hope for a better and brighter tomorrow.

"The light shines through this book. Poetry is a kind of breathing space and Rob Cowen has taken to it. Domestic in the best sense of the word – small scale, intimate, known – it is tender in as many senses of that word as there are. I am deeply grateful for it." —Tim Dee, author, Landfill

Rob Cowen is an award-winning writer, hailed as one of the UK’s most original voices on nature and place. His book Common Ground was shortlisted for the Portico, Richard Jefferies Society, and Wainwright Prizes and voted one of the nation’s favorite nature books on BBC Winterwatch. His poems have featured on Caught By The River and in Letters to the Earth (Harper Collins). He lives in North Yorkshire.

Nick Hayes is a writer, illustrator, and print-maker. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Book of Trespass. He has published graphic novels with Jonathan Cape and worked for many renowned titles. He lives on the Kennet and Avon canal.