Ten Poems about Swimming

There’s something at once elemental and child-like about moving through water – whether we paddle like a dog or can manage an elegant crawl. These delightful poems explore the many joys of swimming in pools, rivers and oceans. We travel all the way from a child learning to swim at home on a piano stool to a swimmer in a public baths which become suddenly splendid:

“the pool spread like a sunken ballroom, marbled with the winter sun and here, the deep end’s edge where I hang breathless…