I think of myself primarily as a poet. My bibliography perhaps says otherwise.
Devils in the Details (Five Leaves, 2026)
‘A rich and vivid ode to the oft-overlooked folklore of Lincolnshire. Waterman marries robust research with humorous narration, and crafts personal reflections with poetic flair as he travels the county talking to its people, capturing its landscapes, and seeking its hidden folkloric treasures. We travel alongside Waterman as he encounters stories of devils, boggarts, witches, and wild men, and as he searches for the horseshoes, the big rocks, and the old doors that anchor these stories to the land. I loved it!’
Ceri Houlbrook, author of Folklore: A Journey Through the Past and Present
‘An enlightening companion to an overlooked county, Devils in the Details is part memoir, part literary criticism and all love of Lincolnshire. The book plunges into the stuff of story in luminous, evocative prose shot through with a wry sense of humour. It will tell you a lot about stories, and probably something about yourself too.’
Eleanor Conlon, Three Ravens Podcast
Lincolnshire Folk Tales Reimagined, ed. Rory Waterman and Anna Milon (five Leaves, 2025)
‘A fascinating collection demonstrating both the versatility and the ongoing power of folk tales.’
David V. Barrett, Fortean Times
‘This book brings together 14 writers who have taken old Lincolnshire folk tales and reimagined them in fresh new ways. These aren’t dry retellings from dusty archives. They’re full of imagination, humour, and a few eerie twists.’
Anna Yates, Community Spirit
Endless Present: Selected Articles, Reviews and Dispatches, 2010-2023 (Shoestring Press, 2024)
‘One of the most honest and reliable poetry reviewers writing today. […] See his superb and surprising dispatch from Waco, Texas.’
Tristram Fane Saunders, Times Literary Supplement
‘This is a volume well worth perusing and returning to time and again as an aid to re-reading poetry from the last decade or so. It is informative and wears its learning lightly for the well-versed, but not necessarily academic reader.’
Kate Noakes, London Grip
‘Waterman emerges as someone who is prepared to wrangle with his own choices and preferences, to be refreshingly not sure, and to let it all play out, in public, in his reviews and longer essays. An expanse of writing that has Philip Larkin and Daljit Nagra, the late 1950s and the second decade of the new millennium as its landmarks of space and time, Waterman’s collected criticism is endlessly present. It offers a view of where he sits (when critical writing about poetry has elsewhere become an anonymous exercise in intellectual generalisation) and writes words neither salaried, nor pensioned.’
Debasish, Lahiri, Everybody’s Reviewing
Wendy Cope (Liverpool University Press, 2021)
‘Waterman’s book does well at situating Cope in her literary and historical contexts. His expertise on Larkin and Causley makes for some illuminating comparisons, and he usefully flags the connection between “Goldfish Nation” in Serious Concerns (1992) and Heathcote Williams’s Whale Nation (1988): popular at the time, much less visible now. A page later, Waterman contextualizes Cope’s famous parodic voice, J. Strugnell, who changes from a Jake to a Jason between Cope’s first and second books just as – Waterman notes – Jason Donovan was becoming “the most famous dreamy-eyed pop boy in Britain”. These slides between lenses are delightful.’
Noreen Masud, Times Literary Supplement
‘Given the overnight popularity with which the work was greeted (albeit not in all quarters) it is remarkable that Rory Waterman’s is the first critical study of her work. As well as submitting individual poems to the fine scrutiny of his jeweller’s loupe, he is also able deftly to bring in and, if necessary, rebut earlier assessments of her work.’
N. S. Thompson, PN Review
Poetry and Covid-19, ed. Rory Waterman & Anthony Caleshu (Shearsman, 2021)
‘Brilliantly eclectic, a testament to poetry’s power to reimagine and remake.’ Ben Wilkinson, The Guardian
W. H. Davies: Essays on the Super-Tramp Poet (Anthem, 2021)
Poets of the Second World War (Liverpool University Press, 2016)
‘Accessible and informative […]. Waterman proves an astute guide to the variety of powerful and intimate responses prompted by these cataclysmic events. I recommend his book as a sound introduction to Second World War poetry for general readers and students alike.’ Modern Language Review
Buy Poets of the Second World War (Northcote House, 2016).
The True Traveller: W. H. Davies, A Reader (Fyfield, 2015)
‘I’m very glad this selection has come out. […] And you quickly realise that Rory Waterman is a good editor.’ The Guardian
‘However much his colourful life helped, it was his writing that was responsible for his fame initially. […] [W]orth preserving […] excellent introduction’. The Times Literary Supplement
Buy The True Traveller: W. H. Davies, A Reader, ed. Rory Waterman (Fyfield/Carcanet, 2015).
Something Happens, Sometimes Here: Contemporary Lincolnshire Poetry (Five Leaves, 2015)
edited and introduced by Rory Waterman
‘Bringing the possibilities of poetry, in response to the county’s sights and sounds, up to date.’ Lincolnshire Life
Belonging and Estrangement in the Poetry of Philip Larkin, R. S. Thomas and Charles Causley (Routledge, 2014)
‘Detailed and compelling. […] Much to contribute to discussions of twentieth-century poetry. […] Historically engaged and formally alert. […] He offers fine, sensitive readings. […] Resonant in wider, different public terms.’ Notes & Queries
‘Waterman’s study brings new perspectives and insights. [… His] discussion of Causley and his writing is acute and detailed, establishing nuances and contradictions.’ Charles Causley Society Newsletter
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Rory Waterman 