The Winter Wizard by Sam Retallick Karen Solie sold thousands and was reprinted

sold thousands and was reprinted six times

experimenting with hope

and there is a new range to the music - sometimes headlong

We can see the influences of Polish poetry in the irony and search for meaning in a new cultural landscape

Front cover: Boris Taslitzky

The Winter Wizard by Sam Retallick Karen Solie sold thousands and was reprintedPublished 31st August 2025. Sam Retallicks The Winter Wizard is a folkloric sequence that blends whimsy, melancholy, and myth in an imaginative coming of age narrative. Set in a liminal landscape of moor, woodland, and sea, the poem conjures a dreamlike Cornwall populated by magical figures, talking bobbins, and vanished saints. Through deceptively simple language and shifting forms, Retallick explores grief, seasonal transition, and queer self