These lyrical poems, like the cloud river of the title, are a 'journey down a length of weather-music'. Set in a level landscape of corners and lines (on fields, maps, the sky and the page), they generate beautiful surprises. They see a passing plane as 'the polished arrow of a plough', and teach us how to read cloud language. Through a fresh appreciation of England's lowest and newest landscape, they exemplify how engagement with straight rivers and big skies leads to a balancing of spirit.