It is in the midst of a swirling river, casting a line, that Mark Wormald meets Ted Hughes.
He stands where the poet stood, forty years ago, because fishing was Ted Hughes's way of breathing - and because the poet's writing has made Mark understand that it has always been his way of breathing, too.
Using Hughes's poetry collection River and his fishing diaries as a guide, Mark returns again and again to the rivers and lakes in Britain and Ireland where the poet fished. At times, he uses Ted's fly patterns; at others his rods. It is an obsession; a fundamental connection to nature; a thrilling wildness; an elemental pursuit. But it is also a release and a consolation, as Mark fishes after the sudden death of his mother and during the slow fading of his father.
A brilliant blend of memoir and biography, The Catch is a stunning meditation on poetry and nature, and a quiet reflection on what it means to be a father and a son.
What a marvellous book The Catch is: a time-slipping, genre-shifting exploration of lives and landscapes, in which poetry, memoir and biography swirl and braid most beautifully together. Obsessive, passionate and deep-pooled, Wormald's pursuit of Hughes becomes, over its course, unexpectedly and movingly personal: a journey inwards in spirit as well as backwards in time, moving against the flow. The Catch leaves both its writer and its reader - to borrow a phrase from the book itself - wonderfully "lost in water".
-- Robert MacfarlaneMark Wormald takes what is, on the face of it, a meaningless act - the pursuit of exact, often remote places where a famed poet and fisherman has stood, floated, angled - and makes of it a parable of what angling and poetry share. The act of stalking, the stalking of fish by man, but also the stalking by man of his true self in poetry, the moment of the catch, at the instant of self-forgetfulness.
-- Harry CliftonI'm perhaps more fish than fisher, but like Ted Hughes's River, this book tugs at an atavistic, aquatic consciousness at the base of my brain. Wormald's quest has me swimming in the same brilliant flows, settled in the same rooty riverside nooks, vividly drowsy, deeply awake. I loved it.
-- Amy-Jane BeerA torrent of a book, its swirling deeps and dark backwaters lit with hard-won insight.
-- Luke JenningsMark Wormald has been fishing since the age of four. He is an award-winning poet, winning the Newdigate Prize at Oxford in 1988 and an E. C. Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 1995.
Mark has been a Fellow in English at Pembroke College, Cambridge, since 1992. His first office was once the bedsitting room in which Ted Hughes dreamed of a burned fox. He edited Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers for Penguin Classics and more recently co-edited two collections of essays: Ted Hughes: from Cambridge to Collected (2013) and Ted Hughes, Nature and Culture (2018).
It is in the midst of a swirling river, casting a line, that Mark Wormald meets Ted Hughes.
He stands where the poet stood, forty years ago, because fishing was Ted Hughes's way of breathing - and because the poet's writing has made Mark understand that it has always been his way of breathing, too.
Using Hughes's poetry collection River and his fishing diaries as a guide, Mark returns again and again to the rivers and lakes in Britain and Ireland where the poet fished. At times, he uses Ted's fly patterns; at others his rods. It is an obsession; a fundamental connection to nature; a thrilling wildness; an elemental pursuit. But it is also a release and a consolation, as Mark fishes after the sudden death of his mother and during the slow fading of his father.
A brilliant blend of memoir and biography, The Catch is a stunning meditation on poetry and nature, and a quiet reflection on what it means to be a father and a son.
What a marvellous book The Catch is: a time-slipping, genre-shifting exploration of lives and landscapes, in which poetry, memoir and biography swirl and braid most beautifully together. Obsessive, passionate and deep-pooled, Wormald's pursuit of Hughes becomes, over its course, unexpectedly and movingly personal: a journey inwards in spirit as well as backwards in time, moving against the flow. The Catch leaves both its writer and its reader - to borrow a phrase from the book itself - wonderfully "lost in water".
-- Robert MacfarlaneMark Wormald takes what is, on the face of it, a meaningless act - the pursuit of exact, often remote places where a famed poet and fisherman has stood, floated, angled - and makes of it a parable of what angling and poetry share. The act of stalking, the stalking of fish by man, but also the stalking by man of his true self in poetry, the moment of the catch, at the instant of self-forgetfulness.
-- Harry CliftonI'm perhaps more fish than fisher, but like Ted Hughes's River, this book tugs at an atavistic, aquatic consciousness at the base of my brain. Wormald's quest has me swimming in the same brilliant flows, settled in the same rooty riverside nooks, vividly drowsy, deeply awake. I loved it.
-- Amy-Jane BeerA torrent of a book, its swirling deeps and dark backwaters lit with hard-won insight.
-- Luke JenningsMark Wormald has been fishing since the age of four. He is an award-winning poet, winning the Newdigate Prize at Oxford in 1988 and an E. C. Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 1995.
Mark has been a Fellow in English at Pembroke College, Cambridge, since 1992. His first office was once the bedsitting room in which Ted Hughes dreamed of a burned fox. He edited Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers for Penguin Classics and more recently co-edited two collections of essays: Ted Hughes: from Cambridge to Collected (2013) and Ted Hughes, Nature and Culture (2018).
Subscribe to get Email Updates!
Thanks for subscribing.
Your response has been recorded.
"We Believe In The Power of Books" Our mission is to make books accessible to everyone, and to cultivate a culture of reading and learning. We strive to provide a wide range of books, from classic literature, sci-fi and fantasy, to graphic novels, biographies and self-help books, so that everyone can find something to read.
Whether you’re looking for your next great read, a gift for someone special, or just browsing, Midland is here to make your book-buying experience easy and enjoyable.