The Iron Bridge

Rebecca Hurst's first collection bridges memory and observation, noting the detail of the natural world and our changing relation to it. The book's places are made familiar by walking. It encounters other worlds alive with new and recovered ideas and images – from the folk traditions of her Sussex childhood, to archival encounters with a nineteenth-century nurse-explorer, and her undergraduate training as a Kremlinologist. Her language is deeply rooted, as keenly aware of etymologies as of history. Shaped by myth, history and desire, the poems of The Iron Bridge are theatrical, fierce, music-infused.

Rebecca Hurst is a writer, opera-maker, and illustrator based in Greater Manchester. Her poetry has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including Carcanet's New Poetries VIII. She is the author of a poetry pamphlet, The Fox's Wedding (The Emma Press, 2022). Rebecca has a PhD from the University of Manchester, and is co-founder of the Voicings Collective, an ensemble that devises new music theatre. She teaches creative writing in hospitals, schools, universities, museums and the community.