Poetry

I have been writing and performing poems for many years, exploring art, history and the natural world in words. There are many examples on my blog, including my poem ‘Walking the Hills’ which was one of the winners in the WriteScience Competition 2015, organized by the Fun Palaces Festival.  ‘Flocks of Words’, a poem about the burden of language, won the ‘Imagined Worlds’ competition organised by the Friends of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in honour of the bicentenary of the publication of ‘Kubla Khan’ in 2016. You can read the winning poem by clicking through the links here: Imagined Worlds Award

More recently, I've had poems included in The Curlew, Far Off Places, The Woven Tale Press, Three Drops from the Cauldron, The New European, Indigo Dream's Anthology 'For the Silent'- supporting the League Against Cruel Sports, the 'Places of Poetry' Anthology based on the gorgeous interactive map, and Whirlagust 2 Anthology, from Yaffle Press.   As a former archaeologist, I was particularly thrilled to come runner up in the Creswell Crags Nature Poetry Competition in 2020 and win myself a lovely mammoth. In case you are wondering, Creswell Crags is an Ice Age gorge, full of cave art (as well as more modern apotropaic 'witch' marks) and the remains of ice age animals. Marley the Mammoth now sits above my desk, inspiring me to 'think BIG'!

With the award-winning acoustic folk group, Whalebone, I collaborated on an immersive performance - Flocks of Words. We performed in all kinds of venues – and enjoyed sharing our unique melding of poetry & music with a wide variety of audiences from 2017-2019.  My collection of poems, also called Flocks of Words, sold out of its original 500 copy print run and has now been reprinted. You can order a signed copy through my online shop.

I also write poetry for commissions and residencies. You can find out more on the What I Do page.    

‘Using her wide-ranging knowledge of nature, geology, history, legend, art, archaeology, and mythology, Kate Innes creates extraordinarily rich, well crafted poems, at the same time managing to retain a rare delicacy of touch. This is landscape poetry at its best.’ Pauline Prior-Pitt's review of 'Flocks of Words'

Infante Felipe Próspero

Notice his eyes first. He is looking at you,
wondering if you pose a threat.
His dog is no protection, lying, as it does,
on velvet like a discarded glove.
His amulets may draw your gaze next.
They hang on golden chains,
and his fingers, white as bone,
play with an incense ball.

Encased in cloth and kept inside,
away from hot light and cold wind,
he is pressed and pinned and prayed for.
Fingered by countless Asturian seamstresses,
who stitched and sneezed and coughed,
fed tidbits from the kitchens where
chefs spat and scullions wiped their noses;
he has no defense.

Behind him blackness gapes,
hiding the throne on which he will never sit.
Even without the sun, a palace has many shadows,
but this boy, already a ghost,
casts none but this.