The Bodleian and the Bottle Ovens

A compilation of places and pottery. Relationships and art. Culture and civilisation.

In this written and visual collection, award-winning poet Ailsa Holland weaves a narrative of two cities with two structures: one of literature and one of ceramics. Discover the connection between Oxford's Bodleian Library and Stoke-on-Trent's bottle ovens. Visit reading rooms where a love story blossoms. Hear of women who wish to fill themselves with books. Smell the smoke that created the pots, plates and figures within these poems made of clay. For poetry and pottery lovers alike, Holland shares the environments that shaped her and the art she holds dear.

'What a thing of beauty this collection is. Traversing time and landscape, Ailsa Holland throws words like clay, to be cast in the heart and mind, to be treasured.' (Abi Morgan)

'Here are two bookish lovers; two kinds of poems (in words, in clay); two cities, and the two kinds of work that shaped them. Here is a teapot quoting Clarice Cliff: “Having a little fun at my work doesn't make me any less of an artist”. And here is Ailsa Holland, playing with words and clay and inheritance. This collection is full of love for the places that made her the woman she is, and acknowledgement of the forces that constrain and free us all.' (Jo Bell)

'Ailsa Holland's 'The Bodleian and the Bottle Ovens' is as methodologically daring as it is charming, personal, witty and incisive. We can smell the burning here and it is a city, and a jug.' (Steven J Fowler)

106 pages incl 27 full-colour images