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Fox / Plague Year Season 3 by Polly Atkin
Editorial Note by Max Wallis
Polly Atkin’s three poems move through pain, body, endurance — and with Fox / Plague Year Season 3 she leaves us with survival as practice. The fox is both real and emblematic: a creature stepping into the road, alert and cautious, a guide through the wreckage of the plague years. It’s not mystic but pragmatic, teaching vigilance, mask-wearing, the refusal of shame. It’s a presence to hold onto in the glare of denial, a reminder to stay fleet, masked, unashamed.
The fox steadies the speaker through sickness, across borders, and back home safe. As with all Atkin’s work here, survival is not abstraction but practice itself: animal, embodied, ongoing.
This is how Polly Atkin closes her trio: not with cure, not with consolation, but with the animal presence that keeps you steady through the dark, and sees you back safe.
Fox / Plague Year Season 3
by Polly Atkin
First fox in years. Four in the morning,
crossing the lake road, carefully glancing
in both directions before she stepped out,
confident in the winter night, ours
the only car on the road and plenty
of time to pass before we reached her.
Road-safe Fox. Warning Fox.
Fox in command of personal responsibility.
We were on the way to the airport – my beloved
driving – me the one flying, crossing
the world on a wind of sickness. Ever
had your beloved drive you to the airport
for the season finale of a plague show when most
of the cast have forgotten the plot? I was shaking
like a rabbit in the careless beam of their glaring
denial. And when I most needed her, Fox
saying courage! keep fleet, keep your own bristling council,
keep your eyes sharp, your head down, keep wearing your mask
and you’ll make it back. In the desert I meet
the skull of her cousin – white flag in the sand –
a message about distress and endurance. All through
the lonely journey I keep Fox in mind.
Her confidence in her prudent position. Her refusal
of shame. I wear it as though my future
relied on it. Without guilt. I make it back safe.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aftershockpoetry.substack.com/subscribe
Buy Some of Us Fall here and The Company of Owls here.
POLLY ATKIN (FRSL) is a poet and nonfiction writer. She has published three poetry pamphlets and two collections – Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017) and Much With Body (Seren: 2021), a PBS Winter 2021 recommendation and Laurel Prize 2022 longlistee. Her nonfiction includes Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband: 2021), a Barbellion-longlisted biography of Dorothy’s later life and illness, and a memoir exploring place, belonging and disability, Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better (Sceptre: 2023), a longlistee of the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2024, and Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year 2024. Her third nonfiction book is a love song to the owls of Lakeland, The Company of Owls (Elliott and Thompson: 2024). She works as a freelancer from her home in the English Lake District. In 2023 she and her partner took ownership of historic Grasmere bookshop Sam Read Bookseller.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aftershockpoetry.substack.com/subscribe
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By Max Wallis' Daily Aftershock Writing Prompts (The Aftershock Review)Editorial Note by Max Wallis
Polly Atkin’s three poems move through pain, body, endurance — and with Fox / Plague Year Season 3 she leaves us with survival as practice. The fox is both real and emblematic: a creature stepping into the road, alert and cautious, a guide through the wreckage of the plague years. It’s not mystic but pragmatic, teaching vigilance, mask-wearing, the refusal of shame. It’s a presence to hold onto in the glare of denial, a reminder to stay fleet, masked, unashamed.
The fox steadies the speaker through sickness, across borders, and back home safe. As with all Atkin’s work here, survival is not abstraction but practice itself: animal, embodied, ongoing.
This is how Polly Atkin closes her trio: not with cure, not with consolation, but with the animal presence that keeps you steady through the dark, and sees you back safe.
Fox / Plague Year Season 3
by Polly Atkin
First fox in years. Four in the morning,
crossing the lake road, carefully glancing
in both directions before she stepped out,
confident in the winter night, ours
the only car on the road and plenty
of time to pass before we reached her.
Road-safe Fox. Warning Fox.
Fox in command of personal responsibility.
We were on the way to the airport – my beloved
driving – me the one flying, crossing
the world on a wind of sickness. Ever
had your beloved drive you to the airport
for the season finale of a plague show when most
of the cast have forgotten the plot? I was shaking
like a rabbit in the careless beam of their glaring
denial. And when I most needed her, Fox
saying courage! keep fleet, keep your own bristling council,
keep your eyes sharp, your head down, keep wearing your mask
and you’ll make it back. In the desert I meet
the skull of her cousin – white flag in the sand –
a message about distress and endurance. All through
the lonely journey I keep Fox in mind.
Her confidence in her prudent position. Her refusal
of shame. I wear it as though my future
relied on it. Without guilt. I make it back safe.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aftershockpoetry.substack.com/subscribe
Buy Some of Us Fall here and The Company of Owls here.
POLLY ATKIN (FRSL) is a poet and nonfiction writer. She has published three poetry pamphlets and two collections – Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017) and Much With Body (Seren: 2021), a PBS Winter 2021 recommendation and Laurel Prize 2022 longlistee. Her nonfiction includes Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband: 2021), a Barbellion-longlisted biography of Dorothy’s later life and illness, and a memoir exploring place, belonging and disability, Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better (Sceptre: 2023), a longlistee of the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2024, and Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year 2024. Her third nonfiction book is a love song to the owls of Lakeland, The Company of Owls (Elliott and Thompson: 2024). She works as a freelancer from her home in the English Lake District. In 2023 she and her partner took ownership of historic Grasmere bookshop Sam Read Bookseller.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aftershockpoetry.substack.com/subscribe