Spotting
Rachel Bower
The art of safely supporting someone’s lift
– Hussle
It’s a kind of love, to know how not to touch, as I lay on the bench, feet planted, back arched, the shadow of your cupped hands floating between the steel bar and my fragile rack of chest. A kind of love, to hold back as I push against the weight that pins me down, shuddering for the rep that will complete me, to wait through my tremor, rapt until exactly the right moment for the catch.
Rachel Bower is the author of three poetry collections and an academic book on literary letters. Her debut novel, It Comes from the River was published by Bloomsbury in January 2025. Her latest collection, Bee, was published by Hazel Press in June 2025. Rachel was awarded second place in the Michael Marks Environmental Poet of the Year 2024, and her poems and stories have been widely published, including in The Guardian, The London Magazine, The White Review, Magma and The Rialto. She edited the Family Lines anthology with Simon Armitage (Faber & Faber, February 2026). Her work is represented by Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown.
