Scientists and engineers are the great explorers of our age. Inspired by the work of leading research scientists, by CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, space telescopes which allow us to see our Sun in wavelengths far beyond human vision, and by the Cassini mission’s astonishing photos of Saturn’s moons, poet Katrina Porteous translates to the non-scientist contemporary questions about the nature of physical reality and our understanding of it.
Edge contains three poem sequences, Field, Sun and the title sequence, which extend Porteous’s previous work on nature, place and time beyond the human scale. They take the reader from the micro quantum worlds underlying the whole Universe, to the macro workings of our local star, the potential for primitive life elsewhere in the solar system on moons such as Enceladus, and finally to the development of complex consciousness on our own planet. As scientific inquiry reveals the beauty and poetry of the Universe, Edge celebrates the almost-miraculous local circumstances which enable us to begin to understand it.
All three pieces were commissioned for performance in Life Science Centre Planetarium, Newcastle between 2013 and 2016, with electronic music by Peter Zinovieff. Sun was part of NUSTEM’s Imagining the Sun project for schools and the wider public (Northumbria University 2016). The title sequence, Edge, was broadcast as a Poetry Please Special on BBC Radio 4.
Edge is Katrina Porteous's third poetry book from Bloodaxe, her first to draw upon her long involvement in scientific projects, following two earlier collections, The Lost Music (1996) and Two Countries (2014), concerned with the landscapes and communities of North-East England.
'There are copious notes to satisfy those curious about the science, but the poems typically stand alone… Edge manages to find images adequate to the task of describing the marvel that is the universe, at both micro and macro levels.' – Ben Wilkinson, Guardian
'Functioning like a cosmic map from the level of sub-atomic particles to vast celestial bodies, Edge succeeds in wedding the arts with science to make a mesmerising and transporting collection. Porteous makes precise and artful use of scientific terminology to complement her sparse and tightly constructed verse. The full effect is to bring the reader to a state of communion; to instil a sense of beauty and belonging to the world of particles, fields, waves, and the behaviour of massive gravitational bodies.' – Jade Cuttle, PBS Bulletin
'Regardless of their performance roots, I found the poems in Edge to be strong, evocative pieces exploring the cosmos and the creation of matter and life vibrantly and distinctively through image, metaphor and all the tools available to a skilled poet. The fact that, stylistically, they often appear lean and pared down makes their lyrical imagining of highly complex scientific theories all the more impressive.' – J S Watts, The High Window
'I found Edge thrilling. There’s no self in it, and almost no people, but it doesn’t feel inhuman because Porteous uses different forms of personification so much... Porteous has a gift for quietly startling metaphor and handles free verse in a brilliantly fluent, precise and varied way... Her poems create imaginative bridges between realities directly available to our senses and the vaster or deeper ones that we can only approach by abstract thought or through sophisticated instruments.' – Edmund Prestwich, The North
'Her attention to natural detail, lively imagery, and keen ear for poetic music ground her new work, whose ostensible subject matter – quantum fields, the physics of the sun, and the moons of various planets – could easily dri loose from everyday experience, losing itself in heady abstraction. One doesn’t need a PhD in physics to enjoy these jargon-free poems, just a fondness for well-chosen words and an openness to the mind-blowing implications of contemporary scientic discovery.' – Brian Volck, Slant Books, on Edge
Katrina Porteous was born in Aberdeen, grew up in Co. Durham, and has lived on the Northumberland coast since 1987. She read History at Cambridge and afterwards studied in the USA on a Harkness Fellowship. Many of the poems in her first collection, The Lost Music (Bloodaxe Books, 1996), focus on the Northumbrian fishing community, about which she has also written in prose. Katrina often writes in Northumbrian dialect, as in The Wund an’ the Wetter, recorded on CD with piper Chris Ormston (Iron Press, 1999). She is President of the Northumbrian Language Society and the Coble and Keelboat Society. Her second collection from Bloodaxe, Two Countries (2014), was shortlisted for the Portico Prize for Literature in 2015.
Katrina has been involved in many collaborations with other artists, including public art for Seaham, Co. Durham, with sculptor Michael Johnson, and two books with maritime artist James Dodds. Katrina often performs with musicians, including Chris Ormston, Alistair Anderson and Alexis Bennett.
Katrina is particularly known for her radio-poetry, much of it produced by Julian May. A new version of one of these poems, The Refuge Box, forms part of a permanent installation in Lindisfarne Priory Museum, alongside work by Olivia Lomenech Gill. Another, Horse, with electronic music by Peter Zinovieff, is published as an artists’ book and CD, with prints by Lomenech Gill (Windmillsteads Books, 2014).
Katrina’s third full-length collection, Edge (Bloodaxe Books, 2019), draws on three collaborations performed in Life Science Centre Planetarium, Newcastle, between 2013 and 2016, with multi-channel electronic music by Zinovieff: Field, Sun and Edge. Edge was broadcast as a Poetry Please Special on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.
In 2021 Katrina received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors. Her final collaboration with Zinovieff was Under the Ice (2021). Her work has been set by Kristina Arakelyan for the BBC Proms (Whin Lands, 2023). Katrina’s fourth poetry book from Bloodaxe, Rhizodont, was published in June 2024 and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2024.
