Nick Drake’s From the Word Go explores the different meanings and implications which are tightly packed into that small word – from departures on journeys in this world and beyond it, through expulsions from homes, places and relationships, to the possibilities of adventure and new discovery.
At the heart of the book is a sequence describing the dying, death and afterlife of his father, an account of the struggles, fears, comedies, losses and revelations of that final process of going out of this world.
From the Word Go builds upon the considerable achievement of Nick Drake’s award-winning first collection, The Man in the White Suit.
‘A scintillating collection of poems…a mastery of form and tone, and a simple, uncontrived unravelling of emotional and psychological complexities… If you care about words; if you care about the impossibility but the nobility of trying to express the ineffable in language that is accessible but that stuns, then haunts you, buy this book’ – Lloyd Rees, Envoi
‘Subtle, funny and tremendously moving. He has an eye for the small detail as well as the big picture. These poems brilliantly evoke time and place’ – Jackie Kay
‘Nick Drake shows a talent for capturing the suffering and loneliness of people, and the instantaneousness of events…His Czech roots and friendships with AIDS victims add particularity and worldliness to his elegies and love poems’ – Sarah Wardle, Poetry Review
Nick Drake on being Nick Drake
Nick Drake reads his poem ‘Live Air’ (from his collection From the Word Go) about the other Nick Drake, the 70s singer-songwriter whom he has sometimes been mistaken for, and then discusses all the other sides of being this Nick Drake, not just a poet but a writer known for his work in many other fields and yet with poetry being his first love. Pamela Robertson-Pearce filmed him reading poems from his Bloodaxe collections at his home in Hackney, London, in February 2019. These are split into four sets posted as separate videos.
Nick Drake: poems on climate change
Nick Drake reads six poems on climate change, all from Out of Range, beginning with three Arctic poems written following his participation in Cape Farewell’s trip to Svalbard, ‘Fold up the charts’, ‘the ice core sample’ and ‘Dear mortals’, followed by ’Stranger Thing’ (on the Whitechapel Fatberg), ’Still Life: Plastic Water Bottle (used), and ‘Chronicle of the Incandescent Lightbulb’. Pamela Robertson-Pearce filmed him reading poems from his Bloodaxe collections at his home in Hackney, London, in February 2019. These are split into four sets posted as separate videos.
Nick Drake: poems on love and loss
Nick Drake reads six poems on love and loss: ‘The Very Rich Hours’ and ‘The Cure’ (from The Man in the White Suit) on the loss of friends to AIDS, three love sonnets, ‘This Love’, ‘A Glass of Water’ and ‘Rainbird’ (from From the Word Go), and ‘From the Song Dynasty’ (from Out of Range) on the lifelong love of two men in medieval China. Pamela Robertson-Pearce filmed him reading poems from his Bloodaxe collections at his home in Hackney, London, in February 2019. These are split into four sets posted as separate videos.
Nick Drake: four poems from Out of Range
Nick Drake reads four poems from his most recent collection, Out of Range: ‘Maenad’, ‘The Foley Artist (take two)’, ‘Grace’ and ‘The Back of Your Head’. Pamela Robertson-Pearce filmed him reading poems from his Bloodaxe collections at his home in Hackney, London, in February 2019. These are split into four sets posted as separate videos.
Nick Drake reads 'The Farewell Glacier' from the Arctic
This video by Matt Wainwright was shot during the Cape Farewell 2010 Arctic Expedition, and shows Nick Drake aboard ship reading one of the poems he wrote during the voyage. Five marine scientists and ten artists from around the world – writers, musicians, visual artists, directors and architects – sailed from Longyearbyen around the north-east coast of Spitsbergen in the Norwegian Arctic to encounter the magnificence of this extreme and threatened environment and engage with the scientific research being conducted on board.
