As a child, Fleur Adcock was 'romantically addicted to English trees and flowers'. She felt their loss back in her native New Zealand. Later, she settled in London. But recently, returning to the countryside to live below Loughrigg Fell in the Lake District, she rediscovered this love for Nature. Despite qualms about recording 'what is famous', she responded to the Lakes with freshness and vitality. Her exhilaration is clearly expressed in this selection of poems from 'a year among lakes and fells'. However, as a writer in residence at a college, her stay in Cumbria was short-lived; afterwards, she returned to her old job in London. This is the burden of Below Loughrigg: that writer of these forceful poems is now back in the city.