The Result Is What You See Today: Poems About Running

£10.00

Curated by poet-runners Ben Wilkinson, Kim Moore and Paul Deaton, The Result is What You See Today threads running and poetry through myriad routes, venturing into the how, why and where of a timeless human act.

This affirmative anthology shows that poetry and running have much in common, fulfilling a basic need to live freely, expressively and to feel alive. The poems gathered here reflect this freedom in all its forms: from the track to nature’s trails, from sprints to endurance, from near-spiritual moments of private connection to the buzz of competitive camaraderie.

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What Writers and Critics Think

  • The poems here are as varied and vibrant as running itself. Whether you're new to running or a seasoned athlete, and whatever your interest, you'll find words to inspire and entertain.

    Jo Pavey, British long-distance runner and a World, European and Commonwealth medallist
  • he Result Is What You See Today looks at running from a perspective we don’t often encounter, and that’s both refreshing and inspiring.

    Tracksmith
  • A tour-de-force celebration of tracks and trails ... Enduring endless laps and lashing rain, it provides an uplifting insight into the power of endurance and the prize of euphoria.

    Poetry Book Society

Description

“In this unique anthology, we are grounded in a universe of pain and reward, of oblique compulsions made concrete, and of the incalculable benefits to individual wellbeing and directed collective purpose.” – The Yorkshire Times (read full review)

“… Some of the poet-runners are running from their own pasts … while others are running through wider histories: Lynne Rees, for example, is “running through the wondrous silence of history.” John McLeod runs through history in a rather different way, in his brilliant poem, ‘Running – a bucket list’. Here, running becomes a kind of time travel, as the narrator imagines running through key moments in history and mythology …” – extract from a review by Jonathan Taylor in Under the Radar issue 25

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Tracey Herd

What I Remember

is not the race itself but the evening

which disappeared in a tangle of diving

sunlight and nerves as I hugged myself,

chilled, and waited for the starter, bent

forward, the tang of mown grass

sprayed like water and the white lines

freshly painted on the spongy red track,

breasting the tape, alone and splendid,

queen of my own universe, then the medal

like a tiny sun catching the last of the light,

and feeling as if my heart would burst.

*

Paul Deaton’s A Watchful Astronomy (Seren, 2017), was a PBS Recommendation and a National Poetry Day selected title.

Kim Moore’s The Art of Falling (Seren, 2015) won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. She has won a New Writing North Award, an Eric Gregory Award and the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize.

Ben Wilkinson’s Way More Than Luck was published by Seren in 2018. He has won the Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition and a Northern Writers’ Award.

Additional information

ISBN

978-1-912196-81-4

Pages

150