Darwin’s Microscope

Darwin’s Microscope, Kelley Swain’s debut volume of poetry, was first published in 2009 by Flambard Press. The current edition is a 2019 tenth-anniversary volume from Valley Press, to celebrate the song cycle Endless Forms Most Beautiful, composed by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, of which a selection of the poems comprises a significant part. In the decade since her first publication, Swain has continued to inhabit the liminal space between science and poetry, working as a celebrated poet and art critic specialising in both ecological and medical topics, including a year as one of the first three poets-in-residence at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

With a section of new poems, new cover art by artist Katherine Child, and an introduction by Luz Mar González-Arias, this edition allows readers to revisit Swain’s debut collection in the context of international debates on the current geological era, the Anthropocene, characterised by overwhelming evidence on climate change. With demonstrations of ecological grief taking place worldwide, there is now an urgency to search for reciprocal ways of relating to our environment. Darwin’s Microscope contributes to the search from the vantage point of experiencing two worlds at the same time: in other words, by inhabiting the space where magic happens.