Polly Atkin

[8] Her first book-length collection, Basic Nest Architecture, was published in 2017; it was divided into three sections, with poems relating to her move from London to the Lake district, earlier places and topics, and her current experience of living with chronic illness.

[16] Her 2021 poetry collection Much With Body was described in Wales Arts Review as "an exploration of pain and illness refracted through the geographical lens of the Lake District, and the often overlooked writings of Dorothy Wordsworth".

[18] It has been described as "a raw and exquisite meditation on chronic illness and our place within the landscape",[19] "An empowered and patient story, at times murky and tedious, but still poignant",[20] and "Essentially ... a book about bearing the unbearable".

[21] She is a founder and director of The Gravestone Project, "a digital humanities collective that brings together scholars, taphophiles, students, writers, teachers, and others interested in history, literature, and the arts, to think about the various ways that people memorialize the dead".

[23] Atkin has one of the Ehlers–Danlos syndromes and genetic haemochromatosis, and writes and talks about living with chronic illness especially in relation to rural life and access to nature.