Leah Wilkins is a graduate in English with Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham and was the recipient of the Kirke White Poetry Prize in 2017. Leah works at Five Leaves Bookshop as events coordinator. She writes and performs poetry in Nottingham and is working on her first pamphlet collection of poetry.
Her chosen poem is ‘Looking Up in the Garden’ by the American poet W. S. Merwin (1927 – 2019). Her podcast was recorded a few weeks before his death in March 2019. She picked out this poem with the help of her partner and daughter from a shortlist of three. What attracted her to it was its unpunctuated style, its interesting subject matter and its contemplative mood, a caught moment in time.
Acknowledgement: W. S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning (Bloodaxe Books, 2014; Copper Canyon Press, 2014) www.bloodaxebooks.com