A theme that runs through the poems in Plastiglomerate (and my earlier collections) is travel. I travel a lot: to academic conferences and to give talks, to conduct research, to visit a widely dispersed family, and for its own sake. I have grown up believing in the positive values of journeys – the exposure to difference, the possibilities of newness.

Writer and academic Elizabeth-Jane Burnett follows up her acclaimed first collection, Swims, with a remarkable new book in praise of marine fauna.