Jackself

Summary

Set in the rural Cumbria of the poet's childhood, this collection constructs a mythological alter-ego called Jack—part folk figure, part frightened child—through whom it explores the forming of a self, the darkness within pastoral innocence, and the enduring power of rural England's older imaginative traditions. Polley's language is dense with dialect, nursery-rhyme cadence, and a fairy-tale logic that makes the familiar landscape feel both intimate and uncanny. The book is a feat of sustained imaginative world-building.