We Must Not Linger
To be published summer 2025 by Mosaique Press
In these poems, Kate Rose occupies various positions between ‘stillness and surge’, from quietly acute observation of nature to the urgent sensuality of poems such as ‘In subzero temperatures’. Icy weather is a consistent presence in the collection, reflected in the poet’s crisp clarity and spare but moving language. Although there is a chill atmosphere in the settings, there is also the warmth of deep emotional response to people, region and landscape. These are poems that will stay with you and ask to be read and re-read over time.
Derek Sellen, Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year 2018 and 2023, winner of Poets Meet Politics, O Bheal Five Words and Poetry Pulse
‘We must not linger’ is in fact an invitation to do exactly the opposite – to explore an in-between world glistening with icy menace and superstition, blessed with the rich colours of surprise jewels, glaucous oceans, and the warmth of baking bread. The riddling quality and haunting figures of these lyric poems compel the reader to return to their intriguing shores – to glimpse an elusive inner land- and sea-scape, where past and present merge; and to savour deep moments of beauty and light.
Sue Kindon, poet
If this collection from Kate Rose was only bought for one poem, ‘The night-time visitors of a dying country man’, the reader would be satisfied. Aren’t you curious the dying man cries from an open window, Kate asks her reader. Profound words belonging only to a thinking
poet, and ending with the most beautiful of words, A song thrush calls from the chestnut tree. An excellent collection for those with a love of poetry.
John Eliot, poet, editor, critic
This collection will leave a mark, doused by moisture in all its forms: snow, ice, hoarfrost, rain, storm, tempest,tide, wave, spray, surf, foam, spit, cloud, fog, dew, tear, breath, blood, soup, mud, champagne, venom. Lines are frozen, drank, dank, dipped, damp, wet,washed, wept, seeped, drenched, swollen, bobbing, afloat, overflowing. From sea, ocean, depth, surge, shallow, shoreline, coastline, seaside, beachside, river, gorge, stream, pond, ditch, bucket, basin, bowl, jug, flute, blotter, dog mouth, kiss. Linger beneath Kate’s watering-can Rose as her poems flower, soak you in her lulling, draw you like water.
Karen Gemma Brewer, poet, singer, actor
Brushstrokes
The cover illustration Late September at the beach is courtesy of Nia Mackeown, a Pembrokeshire-born artist with a passion for painting en plein air.
I would love to join in with events in your area. If you are organising an event, and you would like me to attend and give a reading or host a workshop, please do contact me at katerosepoetry@gmail.com
Praise for Brushstrokes
Kate Rose’s poems are vivid with imagery, sensory and enigmatic creating stories of love, loss, place and family with brushstrokes of language as delicate as watercolour. A memorable and aptly named first collection.
– Chrys Salt MBE, poet & playwright
Kate Rose’s Brushstrokes collection is a symphony of tastes, smells, voices and colours, gifting us with clear snapshots of the author’s experiences. Kate Rose populates her poetic universe with people closest to her heart. The subtle shifts in narrative discourse cast the reader in alternating roles – a spectator in awe of nature’s breathtaking displays or an active participant in life-changing events, drawn into a swirl of intense emotions.
– Eliza Claudia Filimon, PhD
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
West University of Timisoara
Kate Rose has a real talent for creating a landscape or a mood with a very few strokes. I love the sudden changes in tempo, as in Yesterday, and in mood, as in Miriam, with the apparently random impressions picked up along the way involving all the different senses.
– James Andrew Taylor, critic, biographer
Author of ‘Walking Wounded: The Life and Poetry of Vernon Scannell
Purchasing copies of Kate’s chapbooks
You can contact me at katerosepoetry@gmail.com, I have signed copies that I am selling direct.
Or you can purchase chapbooks published by Mosaique Press online at: