The Winter Wizard by Sam Retallick Karen Solie the unknowability of our parents'

the unknowability of our parents' suffering

sold thousands and was reprinted six times

The leaps between past and present work in dialogue like a series of exhilarating stepping stones

doors – suggest the slow and repetitive process of grieving

and a rumination on the legacy of migration and empires

The Winter Wizard by Sam Retallick Karen Solie the unknowability of our parents'Published 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