Welcome to the site of the poet Andrew Waterman.

To explore from the menu, click on 'Poems' to read these; 'Prose' for pieces on creative whys and hows; 'Life/Books' details Waterman's career and publications, with a few critics' comments.

Andrew Waterman's LATEST COLLECTION The Captain's Swallow was published by Carcanet in 2007. The Guardian said:-

Andrew Waterman's latest volume is set among the coves and furrowed headlands of Sicily's spectacular Aeolian archipelago. Fishing boats and patron saints form just one aspect of a picture that also includes provincial elections, Juventus matches, mopeds and mobiles - and the poetry is the richer for it. There is a continuity here that seduces both poet and reader.

A page of poems from The Captain's Swallow is among those accessed by clicking 'Poems'. As well as at bookshops, this and Waterman's other collections can be bought online from this site: click 'Links', then on 'Carcanet Press' which takes you to the publisher's Home Page; there, by clicking on 'Authors' you will reach Waterman's 'author page' where you can make purchases.

Waterman's Collected Poems (2000) offers particularly good value, gathering within one volume the poet's work up to that date. Marita Over wrote in Ambit: 'The "story" that emerges through these poems is moving and inspiring and the craftsmanship in its telling is superb.'

On the 'Ongoing' page you can find some recent poems, published in magazines but not yet collected in a book.

Its juddering shakes me awake, the whole apartment
and from my fridge a clattering of things in it,
a glass drops to crash on the kitchen floor
and by now I'm outside on my terrace...
A second tremor shakes the town under dawn sky.

And that is all. Nothing has fallen. This time.
By mid-morning the usual vendor is at
the far end of the Corso, up from Marina Lunga,
shouting his wares: 'Swordfish! Fresh swordfish!'

                     from 'Still Life'


Andrew Waterman was born in London in 1940. After working at various clerical and manual jobs, he read English at Leicester University, and thereafter taught literarture at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1997. He now lives in Norwich, spending part of each year in Sicily. He has one son, Rory.

Waterman's first collection of poetry, Living Room in 1974, was a Poetry Book Society Choice. Subsequent volumes have included two Poetry Book Society Recommendations. His work has been broadcast on radio and television. He edited The Poetry of Chess (Anvil Press 1981), and has written a large amount of critical prose. Andrew Waterman is a recipient of the Cholmondeley Award for Poets.

This site is regularly updated - come back to see changes and additions. If you'd like to comment on anything, ask questions, invite Andrew Waterman to give readings, or involve him in other literary activities, please use the contact email address at the foot of this page.