National recognition for Naomi’s new poetry collection
Local author and University of Chichester academic Dr Naomi Foyle is celebrating a double milestone with the publication of her latest poetry collection, Salt & Snow. The Guardian also selected one of Naomi’s poems, Salt, Snow, Earth, as its Poem of the Week recently.
In Salt, Snow, Earth, the cycle of human violence plays out as a brutal symbolic game, a theme which resonates with past and current global conflicts.
Alongside the poem, a filmpoem was also published which Naomi created with Razia Aziz and Wendy Pye, funded by the University and Arts Council England. The filmpoem, described by The Guardian as ‘compelling’, was produced with the technical support of Darren Mapletoft, Head of Film, and Audio Technician Joris Coiffard from the University of Chichester.
The Guardian’s poetry critic heaped praise on Naomi’s latest work, saying: ‘Salt & Snow is the title of Naomi Foyle’s latest poetry collection. If they haven’t done so already, some judging committee somewhere should shortlist it for a significant prize. Impressively varied and agile in form, international in scope, Salt & Snow is as emotionally rich as it is politically alert, drawing strength from its predominant genre, the elegy.’
Dr Naomi Foyle, author and Reader in Critical Imaginative Writing at the University of Chichester said: “Salt & Snow is a collection of personal and collective elegies, responding to the deaths of friends, family members, writers, and victims of political violence from the USA and Ukraine to Palestine and Israel. It is hard to age and lose our loved ones. And in our era of war, climate crisis, and what I and many scholars consider a genocide in Gaza, even people far from conflict zones can feel helpless and alone. We need to build community at this perilous time on the planet, and I am very grateful to Carol Rumens for highlighting to her wide readership the internationalism and ‘imaginative empathy’ that I strive to express in my writing.
“I’m also thrilled that the Guardian has shone a light on my work with Razia Aziz and Wendy Pye. Razia and Wendy are gifted and insightful creatives each blessed with an abundance of skills, ideas and experience in cooperative working. Our collaboration on the filmpoems ‘Salt, Snow, Earth’ and ‘Ways of Seeing Trees: In Memory of John Berger’ has strengthened my faith in the power of art to comfort the grieving, challenge injustice, dismantle privilege, and generate dialogue toward positive global change.”
To read Naomi’s poem, visit https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jul/21/poem-of-the-week-salt-snow-earth-by-naomi-foyle
